DocAndersen
As we wander from place to place in life we collect tokens. They are less physical, but they exist. That token represents the moment the arrival and departure, the moments in between. Each time we go, out the front door to the world, or simply out the back door to eat Crab on the deck. We stop and add a token. Like a maintenance person working in a large building our lives filled with tokens rattle. We, in the course of our lives, collect 100s, 1000s of tokens. Each one represents a moment. We do not often stop and measure them. We don’t often think about the tokens that are there. We continue moving and collecting tokens. Sometimes the tokens have significance beyond our lives.
Jacob Marley forged a chain of death in his life. His tokens becoming links in a chain that bound him forever to this earth to wander. Yes, the tokens can weigh us down if we do not release them. If we don’t let the tokens be acknowledged. If we carry that token with us too long, it becomes the weight, and it becomes binding to this world. We end up trapped like Jacob was trapped by the chains we forged from the tokens we gathered. We, and by us it a collective, allow those tokens to force us to stop. Let go, and free we can rise to the heights we were meant to see. Let go, and we can be free of the weight. The tokens we collect are helpers.
They are a path to memories. A child collects their tokens delighted in the noise they make as they clank together. A teenage takes the tokens and hides them under their bed with the half-eaten peanut butter sandwich and one honestly sock. It is only as adults that we begin to consider discarding the tokens — throwing them out the window of our lives. We litter the ground beneath our hearts with tokens. Does the make them go away? Or instead, as Jacob did, do we limit our future to wandering a small space with chains forged from tokens we did not understand in life. Release the tokens of anger from your heart and move onward forgiving.
What a lovely outlook
we loved living there (nearly 11 years)