“It is just space,” he nodded his head towards the now empty shelf. “It is not,” said my son, “a bad analogy … the Fridge of Life.” He didn’t elaborate, but after a few moments thought, I had to agree… though it takes a particularly warped mind to see an analogy for life in his fridge. Life, you might quite possibly find… which is why we were cleaning it, but analogies don’t usually figure on his shopping list.
This is a man’s fridge…a man who eats well. Many things are bought, but few are chosen…or at least not enough, and not entirely or not before their ‘use by’ date has used itself up. My personal fridge is more of a Mother Hubbard affair. It usually has eggs and milk, with the occasional bit of salad. I buy what I will eat that day or the next and the leftovers go in the dog.
Not so my son, whose array of ingredients spans the continents and are intended to garnish, furnish and propagate multiple meals per day. Inevitably, things get pushed to the back of shelves I can’t even reach where they take up residence, lurking in the shadows, trying to fast-forward the evolutionary process.
I usually catch anything unbottled that is approaching meltdown or autogenesis. The only thing I want in a fridge that is capable of running away from me is a camembert.
He’s right though… our lives are empty spaces, waiting for us to fill them with our choices. Some of them will work… others won’t and leave an odd or bitter taste. Those we push away, often hiding them in dark corners of the mind and heart, somewhere out of reach where they seem to be forgotten… until they begin to rot and fester.
Then there are the things we hang on to, knowing they were costly or particularly pleasing. We don’t want to waste them… or risk being without what they have offered… so we leave them there… just in case…even though we know their’ sell by’ date may have long since passed.
Unless such things are dealt with… taken out, cleansed and disposed of with due regard to our own inner hygiene…and that of those around us… the decomposition of such negative experiences can contaminate so many other areas of our lives, as well as themselves hiding things even worse that lurk untended in their shadow.
Like a newly cleaned fridge, there is then so much more space for the things you really need. And sometimes, just when you think all that is aleft is a scrap of cheese and an odd tomato… life gives you unexpected gifts…
…even if it has eaten your cheese 😉
Sue Vincent's Daily Echo 
I love this analogy!
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Thanks, Ritu. I’m blaming Nick… and he’ll blame genetics 😉
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Lol!!! Oh I dread my two getting to the age when they do the same..it’s inevitable!!! 😊
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Sort of nice though 😉
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True… Except when it’s a trait you hate in them, then realize they’re just emulating you!!!
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Those you just have to learn to love 🙂
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I’m slowly starting …! 😊
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🙂
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The content of my fridge is just the same as that of my garage and cellar! LOL
Things which are kept, never seen for ages, and never use … To think that what the hell am I keep it all for? Unless, if few things are important and has sentimental value to it – then that is something else entirely, of course.
I just so love this entry, Sue! Life is all filled with such as fridge. LOL
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With my recent house move, I was appalled by how much ‘stuff’ I had accumulated…and never used. The clear out was good. 🙂
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Ugh! True.
Sure the toughest job in the world.
Moving! And before that – the PACKING!
LOL
We are surely collectors of nothing, actually …
(⁀ᗢ⁀)
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I’ll just be glad when the unpacking is finally done 🙂
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To which is, unpacking is easier rather than packing. You know your stuffs because you organized in it certain boxes … Later, the rummaging of lost and found everywhere … LOL
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I’m at that last stage now 😦
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And I am still packing and unpacking things every week in both the cellar and garage … Ugh, it has no ends to it all, isn’t it?
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We will get there…eventually 🙂
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Reblogged this on stevetanham.
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Reblogged this on Anita Dawes & Jaye Marie.
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It is good to unclutter, and not just the fridge. Which reminds me…
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It is… I’m still unpacking and having a second go at lightening the load.
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It is an excellent analogy. By sheer coincidence I defrosted my fridge only yesterday.
Enough ice in there to supply the South pole. I threw away a few bits and pieces.
I also discovered things in the ice …. life from another dimension. Think I’ll clean the oven today.
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Too hot for oven cleaning here… we did his garden instead. Madness.
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Love this, Sue. As I get older, I find these analogies are true of so many things in life – the lessons are everywhere. Almost as if the universe is intricately integrated and makes sublime sense 😉
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I don’t see how something so perfectly balanced and planned can help but make sense. Not that we always see it, mind…but maybe we are just too small 🙂
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Tabula rasa with refrigeration?
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Might as well be cool 😉
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I love this analogy Sue. As I have said before, Nick is a chip off the old block!
Looks like Annie has been a-visiting!
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That ws my fridge… I made the mistake of leaving it ajar one day. The cheese went, the ball left in its place. Absoluttely true…nearly died laughing when I found it 🙂
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HaHA! I love it! Ani is such a character 🙂
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She is… a complete reprobate 🙂
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I think everyone could use a good fridge clean out. I know I’m guilty of finding remnants of expensive condiments and sauces taking up precious real estate in my fridge, I think I may use them one day, then my other mind says, ‘no I don’t want to use that it’s been here for a year’, lol. 🙂
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Yep… I don’t like wasting either, but…
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🙂
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Who else but Ani would think of leaving a beautiful tennis ball tather than empty packaging or just ‘missingness.’ The givingness of dogs!
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I just had to laugh, Jean 🙂
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Excellent! “Sharing is caring” as my wee grandson tells me.
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But you got such a lovely green … thingy, in return. 🙂
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