As I was going through my evening routine, straightening up the kitchen, putting things to rights, I realized how much my priorities have changed, both since the kids moved out a couple of years ago, and since I began working from home again. Despite the fact that, for the past couple of days, I can’t seem to get myself to settle on any one thing for more than, maybe, 30 to 40 minutes, some things have become almost automatic.
As a caution, these things probably seem like no brainers to most people, but through years of holding down a full time job and a side job, raising two girls by myself and trying to stay involved in their lives and activities while maintaining my own sanity, things like a clean house fell way down my list of priorities.
These days, my bed is made almost as soon as I get up, where it used to maybe get made once every couple of weeks. The kitchen is cleaned up almost every night, and the dishwasher is unloaded almost immediately after it is finished running (which, these days, is about once a week!). Laundry is immediately put away instead of sitting in the laundry basket, waiting to be folded.
I know it sounds silly to a lot of you out there who are just inherently neat, but I’m loving walking into my bedroom and seeing the bed made and the pillows piled neatly (unless one of the cats decides they need a nest that day!), or into the kitchen to see the sink empty and wiped down and counters and stove top free for whatever the next day might bring. I’m also loving the fact that the dining room table and sofas are relatively clutter free, and that the fleece blankets are always folded neatly on the backs of the sofas when they’re not in use. Even the accumulations in Heather’s old room and office are nearly gone and her office is currently set up as a guest room (though eventually, it will be my meditation/healing/reading room while her old bedroom will be the guest room. I just need to decide what to do about the floor first!).
It isn’t that I don’t still have clutter, because there are things I’m still trying to figure out where they’re going to be stored, but the clutter has been severely diminished and many things have found a permanent place, out of the way. I’m also becoming far less attached to stuff I haven’t used in forever. Another attack on my closets last week has left me lots of space, making it easy to find what I want to wear. The next step will be to put a bunch of plastic food storage containers on Freecycle. I don’t use them, they’ve been in boxes for two years, and before that, taking up space in the back of my cupboards. I’ve since replaced many of them with Rubbermaid ones which I like a lot better, and will thin out my collection of oversized bowls when the kids move this week.
Though I’m not getting what I would call anything productive done, either writing wise, or accounting wise, I am making more room in my life for whatever is coming, and that, too, is productive and necessary.
As my A.R.T. teacher kept telling us, we need to express our desires in broad strokes, not worrying about the details or the hows. Something in the broad strokes I painted is guiding me to continue clearing things out, and more, letting things which no longer serve me go. As the physical is a mirror of the emotional and energetic, I can’t help believing that, while I remove more physical stuff from my world, I’m opening myself up energetically to some really spectacular new developments which are just waiting in the wings until I’ve cleared some more space.
I have to say that walking into an uncluttered living room or kitchen is really refreshing for me, and that having my office more organized and the desk, typically clean unless I am working on something (of course, this doesn’t include the requisite cat who, at the moment, is using my phone and iPad as a bed) makes getting started on anything (when I’m not all betwixt and between like I am at the moment) a great deal easier.
In some ways, I believe I am clearing the way to finally knock out the wall between the kitchen and living room and install the new cabinets and everything else which goes with the kitchen of my dreams. Slowly, but surely, I am aligning my world for something bigger than myself. I can offer insights into what some of the pieces might be, but in truth, I can only keep decluttering and wait and see, like anyone else.
I’m reminded of a couple of pieces of advice I’ve acquired over the years. The first is “KISS” or Keep it Simple, Stupid. The second, newer one, is “KIMF” or Keep it Moving Forward. I think both apply right now. I’m simplifying my life in a lot of ways right now, but in the process, I’m moving forward into what, I couldn’t really tell you for sure. I just know that whatever it is will be exactly where I need to be.
My gratitudes tonight are:
1. I am grateful for Universal guidance, even when I don’t realize that I’m being guided.
2. I am grateful for clearing space, clearing thoughts and ultimately, a clear understanding of my path.
3. I am grateful for days when I don’t really get anything done (unless you count laundry and a couple of small decluttering tasks), and realizing that it’s ok.
4. I am grateful for always having enough: enough to live, enough to share, enough to do whatever I want to do.
5. I am grateful for crossroads which cause me to re-evaluate my priorities.
Love and light.
