Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Figuratively speaking

Well, I've been in a bit of a cocoon stage, I guess you could say.

The kids have been out of school since the last time I posted. The anniversary of Nathan's death has come and gone. DeDe surprised me with a visit about that time (June 7th) and kept me too busy to dwell on things, as I am wont to do. I powerwashed sidewalks for a few days for money. Still no job.

If you don't have anywhere to work, the only other option is to work on yourself. Talk about a mountain to climb. I am attempting to step back and take an objective view of myself. Not only of myself, I should say, but the position I'm in as a result of my choices. It ain't pretty, but it ain't all bad.

A closet never looks worse than when you're right in the middle of cleaning it out. Before you start the door is closed, so it looks fantastic. Who can tell what the condition is inside? Even when you open it up, things don't look so bad. Sure there's crap piled up to the ceiling and a few dust bunnies float around, but it all fits in there doesn't it? There's just no room for anything else and you can't find anything you might need in there.

So you start taking it all out. Holy crap. There's a heck of a lot more stuff in there than you thought. You drag more and more piles out onto the floor until you are surrounded by one big mother of a mess. Then you get discouraged, because now you can see the magnitude of your procrastination. Shoving things into the closet to get them out of the way only makes cleaning day that much worse.

But the truth is, by the time you get to the point where the job looks impossible to finish and you just want to throw your hands in the air and quit, you're already halfway done. It gets easier and easier as you throw out the things you don't need anymore, even letting go of some stuff you thought you'd want to keep forever but realize it doesn't serve a purpose anymore other than to take up space.

And then there are the little surprises. Wonderful treasures you'd forgotten were in there after living so long without them. Woo-hoo! Christmas in July.

Before you know it the floor is cleared, the closet is clean, and you can hardly remember how bad it was before you finished. Ideally, the final result is a fantastically organized tool that is more help than hindrance, and the lesson is learned to deal with things as they come instead of shoving them away for another day.

Yeah, right.