A few nights ago I had a dream that Buddy had come upstairs to my daughter’s bedroom. I walked in and said hello to him. Buddy told me that he really did not want to sleep on the floor and that he wanted to sleep in her bed. He crawled in, and I covered him up and gave him a kiss, and as he drifted off to sleep, I realized that Buddy had been talking to me. He did not sound like I thought he would: I had imagined a comical, slightly overblown voice, like the love child of Fat Albert and Foghorn Leghorn. But no. He had a normal voice, and by the time I realized that he was using it, it was too late. I woke up.

There was something else wrong about this dream, too, for Buddy can no longer make it up the stairs, and his mobility — or lack thereof — was one of the things that prompted Friday morning’s trip to the vet. When the vet asked me, “Do you think that Buddy is in pain?,” I burst into tears, for Buddy cries a lot these days. He lingers at his food bowl and he cries. He gets stuck on the floor and he cries. If I am not downstairs by 6:45 a.m., he cries. My dog now constantly seeks the comfort trifecta: food, walk, mom. I thought that I had taken him to the vet for a prescription for arthritis medicine and antibiotic drops to treat the eye that looks like it belongs to a rheumy basset hound. Instead, I walked out with steroids and painkillers and a plan to make my 12 year-old dog comfortable if — and as long as — I could make him comfortable.

“Oh, Buddy,” I said. And then I cried.

It looks like 2018 will be the year of letting go. Overachiever that I am, I have gotten the jump on it. Hair color? Gone. I am going grey. It is a surprisingly slow process, as is accepting the fact that I am going grey.

Caffeine? Out. My last caffeinated drink was around 4 p.m. on December 21, and for three whole days, I wondered why Dr. Google warned of the ill effects of caffeine withdrawal from going cold turkey. I was fine. Absolutely fine! And then, for the next three days, I wondered if my head was going to explode at the exact same time that my stomach did. (Fortunately, neither happened, although I found myself practically fondling a can of Red Bull at a convenience store.)

My wedding china?  Now displayed in a china cabinet, no longer in use, to make way for plain white plates and dishes. Sure, I burst into tears in a strip mall parking lot as I helped Chris load the new boxes, wailing “It’s the end of an era!”

Spending? Duly curbed. I found myself yelling at my iPhone when I got this text from a fabric store — START YOUR RESOLUTIONS NOW! 50% OFF ONE ITEM. Usually, the words “50% off” fill my heart with glee, but this year, I am struck by the fact that I have too much fabric, too many things, too many projects to make. So I started that resolution at that moment, mentally texting myself: STAY OUT OF FABRIC STORE. <3.

And the night before last, I wondered this: If my near future holds letting go of a dog that I genuinely love, how hard would it be to let go of all of the crap in the two cabinets of junk in my kitchen?

The answer: Not hard at all. Give me an hour, several trash bags, and cleaning supplies, and I am golden.

I continue to be amazed by what I find in these purges. When I cleaned out my purse collection, I made money, found pens, octupled my lipstick collection. But I clearly had been hiding my treasures in the kitchen. There was the valuable: A tarnished Tiffany & Co. sterling silver key chain and a Waterford Balmoral covered box, still in the familiar grey box (which helpfully announced what it was). I have no idea where these two things came from, although I now have the fanciest Q-tip and cotton ball holder in all of coastal Georgia.

There was also a sterling silver mirror that I remembered well. My father gave it to me on a cold and rainy day in February 1985. He had just picked me up from the Altanta airport after I had ridden a small plane in a fierce thunderstorm from Albany, Georgia. I arrived sweaty and green, an (unused) air distress bag tucked in my purse. We were headed to Athens, where I had a college scholarship interview. I had looked for that mirror for at least a decade, and there it was. Behind now dead batteries, electric bills from 2007, light bulbs that no longer fit anything we owned, almost empty cleaning supplies. Where else would it be?

The valuable

The cabinets also held the sentimental:  A 2005 birthday card from my sister, mailed two months in advance, and two postcards from my then 8 year-old son, sent from his first summer of camp. It was the only summer he went to Camp All-Star, which billed itself as a sports camp. We billed it as a sports injury camp, a name that arose after he got hit in the head with a golf club and required stitches. I recall the call informing us of this happenstance, for it began in the most worrisome way: a squeaky teenaged voice saying, “I don’t mean to worry you, but. . . .” It was all downhill from there. Beyond the memory, I especially loved one of the postcards, which perfectly captured the fact that our son was the Eeyore of small children. It ended with “Anything wrong in Savannah?”

I found the before and after photos taken by my son’s orthodonist, the before reminding me of the dental fork in the road that his teeth presented: either obtain orthodontia or move to Great Britain.

And at the back of the cabinet, I found my first dog’s red leather collar, the one that I had removed from his neck on his own last day at the vet. I cried again for good measure.

The sentimental (hidden away to find again)

I am turning 50 this summer. That fact — unlike everything else, apparently — does not make my cry. It is good to live long enough to realize the sheer delight presented by living even longer. But I cannot live in the Museum of Amy Lee, admiring and grasping tightly to the relics of the past. I have to let go of what I do not need. I have to claim myself. I need grey hair and sleep. Streamlined routines and clean surfaces. Space — plenty of space. Room to create. Money to save. I need comfort and warmth and plenty of understanding as I let go of things both small and large. I need ease in times of great difficulty.

Settled and finally becoming more satisfied, a spare trash bag in hand for all of the other junk drawers of my life, that is what I resolve in this new year.

ALC