One of the last things I did before leaving Massachusetts, where I grew up, went to college and went to medical school, was to visit the Cape one final time. The Cape has always been one of my favorite places in Massachusetts and is now the only place I really miss.

While I was on that trip I bought some chimes.

I’d always wanted chimes but they were a luxury I felt I couldn't afford. The chimes I bought were small to middle-sized chimes, barely in my price range. My very first post-medical school job started a couple of weeks from then, and I wouldn’t get my first paycheck until the end of the month.  Like many fourth-year medical students, I had racked up several thousand dollars of credit card debt getting myself to interviews (This was on top of student loan debt, which, since I was going to a state school in the late ’80s was not much compared with what students come out of medical school with now.)

But still, I couldn’t really afford them.

But I bought them as one last memento of windswept beaches, freezing water, sunrise and sunset sides of the cape, rolling sand dunes, crashing waves, and my childhood. 

Shortly after this trip, I drove out to New Mexico to start my residency. There wasn’t really anywhere to hang them in my new apartment.

So they waited, silently, until I had started my first post-residency job, bought a house with my then-husband, and up went the chimes. I was delighted by their musical tones, which changed rate and tune with the winds. 

My ex-husband apparently did not delight in them. He never said anything, but I would come home from work to find a giant rubber band around the chimes, stifling their song. I’d take off the rubber band and throw it away, only to find a new one muting the chimes in short order. We never discussed it, which tells you a lot about our marriage.

Eventually, tired of the silent impasse, I took the chimes down and once again put them away. 

After we divorced and I got my own house, I put them back up, once again enjoying their music. Soon they were joined by a larger, deeper set of chimes and merrily they rang out with the wind. One night there was a very windy storm and the chimes were hitting the house and drainpipes, so I brought them in. 

Recently, I hung them back up, reveling in the sense of freedom and peace that their song gave me. Then an unexpected thing happened.

The mix of the two chimes started to sound jangly to me. The smaller chimes seemed tinny and less pleasing to my ear, disturbing my peace, while I still enjoyed the deeper, more peaceful sounds of the bigger chimes.  

After a few days I took the smaller chimes down again.

Does this mean my ex-husband was right? (Spoiler alert: no, it definitely does not.) At the time I bought them, the smaller chimes were the best I could afford, the prettiest I had heard, and were music to my ears, but that has changed. I have changed. 

When I bought the first set, I was a young woman, just starting out with her first real medical job. Now, after being in practice for more than 20 years, I am not that same person, although parts of her remain.

I too have grown deeper and many of the things that filled me with joy thirty years ago don’t necessarily fill me with joy now. People change, tastes change and I have outgrown the first set of chimes and what they represented to me at the time. And it’s time to release the things that no longer resonate or bring joy. 

What is no longer resonating with you and is ready to be released or transformed?

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