Cleaning Euphoria?

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apartment, blankets, burden, cleaning, clear, clear out, clutter, decluttering, euphoria, goodwill, home, house, junk, living room, pillows, popcorn, rubbish, salvation army, stuff, tissues, totes

I have spent the last three days or so clearing stuff out. I have thrown away at the very least half a dozen plus bags of garbage, and I have a half a dozen large boxes/totes and a garbage bag of clothes to take to the goodwill.  Woo hoo! Right?!? Not so much. Even with all that gone I still feel like this house is overloaded with stuff. I am so ready to have that feeling of cleaning and space euphoria and it’s not quite there. I must say I am a bit dismayed.

This means there can only be one cure. I need to get rid of more junk. It never fails to amaze me at how quickly it accumulates. I went through some of my things awhile back -specifically items to go into whatever place I am living in after this house. I managed to purge half of my collection. Afterwards I felt the most amazing sense of euphoria at what I had accomplished. I was hoping to feel that same sort of release today.

I thought by getting rid of this many things and organizing my other totes in the basement I would feel like the burden of it would be lifted, but it’s not. Ever since the end of school I have been looking to streamline the amount of stuff in the rooms that I am in the most.

Times like this I dream about the day I can move out, and what that place will look like. I am envisioning clear counter tops, book cases with minimal knick knacks – e.g. one vase. The one thing that will have “clutter” is the living room floor on movie night. Blankets, pillows, popcorn and tissues will be all over the floor. Now that is my kind of clutter.

Clearing it all out..

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bookcases, books, broken, cabinets, clean, cleaning, clearing, closets, clutter, de-clutter, declutter, jewelry, office, organize, paperwork, rooms, space

It’s a new year and time to haul out the old to make way for a fresh start. As you can read at my new blog here, I have gone through and de-cluttered my make up. At first it was a bit of a shock  to have it that cleaned out, but now it is so nice to open the cabinet and not see 50,000 products.

I did the same with my medicine cabinet. I tossed out any medicine that was expired or an expiration date that could not be found. Then I attacked the under the sink cabinet and drawers. I got rid of cleaning products and expired rubbing alcohol and peroxide. Next came the hair brushes, combs, and hair ties. I tossed everything stretched out or near broken and put all of my brushed and combs in one bin, headbands, bobby pins and clips in another. Then came the hair elastics. I had no clue what to do with them until I saw a cardboard jewelry box that a Christmas gift came in. It was perfect, just the size I need. Now I can just reach in and put them out instead pulling out tangled bits, bobs, hair ties and loose hair.For the smaller hair ties I am going to get a cardboard ring box to store them.

The second drawer houses my hair dryer, curling iron, extra bath poofs, and the all important pedicure supplies. I keep my nail polishes in my medicine cabinet, but there isn’t enough room to house my files and clips and such in that. So I swapped the basket that used to house my jumble of hair ties with my pedicure supplies. It works much better. Its larger and I can see in it much easier without rooting about for a nail clipper.

Now feeling all productive and accomplished, I went to my jewelry. I organized the studs from the danglies and put my long inexpensive necklaces on a hanging tie rack that I keep on  hook that hangs on my closet door. I put my nicer necklaces on the hooks inside my jewelry chest. I threw out any broken jewelry that wasn’t worth getting fixed. Each piece that I do want repaired went into tiny ziploc bags and now they are all ready to go to the jewelers.

Motivated I attacked the three junk drawers in my bedroom. Junk drawers are amazing. For me they are the last refuge of an item before the garbage. If I don’t exactly where something should go or I don’t have a place for  it, or I am not quite sure if I need it or not, in the drawer it goes. In my attempt to de-clutter I went from three drawers of “stuff” to one organized drawer and two empty drawers.

That was yesterday, today I am working on the office. Lord have mercy. How does paperwork accumulate like that? My shredder is going to be working overtime to be sure. I just want to dump everything. I have books on bookcases and I am just packing them away. I want to keep them, I just don’t want to see them. One day I will have a space for them, today is just not that day.

I am ready for it all to be cleared out. That is the light at the end of the tunnel in this project and its not very far off. It will get cleared out, one piece at a time!

Where does the love go?

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anger, cards, cleaning, clutter, commitment, contemplation, Contemplative thoughts, emotions, ex, feelings, front porch, honest, letters, live, love, love letter, love letters, personal, relationship, relationships, sadness, thoughts, vulnerable

That is the question that is on my mind tonight as I sit here on my front porch. Where does the love go? In this blog I have tried to put down some of my innermost thoughts. My most honest, real to the soul, innermost thoughts. This post I am sure will be no exception. This weekend I have been clearing my clutter out. I am graduating in 4 days and I have been systematically boxing everything up. I have also been going through other things.

I have boxes of books and an entire desk in the basement of things to go through. I went through most of it. Then I hit the lower left hand drawer. Folders and folders of school things. I could pitch most of it, thankfully. Then I hit the back of the drawer. The mother lode.

The mother lode of baggage, if you will. In the back of the drawer held a cache of letters and cards from my ex. I had utterly forgotten about it even being there. I would be lying if I said it didn’t effect me. It does not anger me. For a long time most everything surrounding that did. However, I got over my ex a long time ago. Mainly I just realized that it wasn’t worth the spent anger.  Tonight though I think I am just confused.

I could not help but to open some of the letters and read them. It was like a timeline of the relationship. Starting out as friends and then you could see the relationship growing. I think what has me confused is how do you go from ” You’re all I need” to “I need you to not be around”? How does that happen in a relationship? I didn’t understand it then and I have to admit four years later I am still nowhere close to figuring that out. Don’t get me wrong. I am not hankering for my ex. I DO NOT miss the relationship, and I have less than zero desire to have it back. I am so much better off now, it’s not even funny.

Reading these old letters  has me pondering: how you can spend so long growing and nurturing a relationship to only have it bust? How does a person go from claiming such a strong love to passionately believing the opposite? How does a person change their feelings about someone that they supposedly care about so deeply; someone who saw them through such awfulness, and the nightmares of their life. I can’t lie, the letters don’t make me upset as in angry, but they sicken me. They make me nauseous. The realization of how vulnerable I allowed myself to be, makes me queasy. It makes me want to plant my feet firmly on the ground and close up shop, never to feel that hurt again. This is such a  hard thing for me to say, but in this moment right now it is my honest and truest feelings.

For so long, I have been focused on planting only the roots that would allow me to grow the wings to let me fly.  These roots – these feelings  – are not the same kind of root. These are the kind of roots that are an emotional anchor.  Right now my life is about going places and making my life worth something. To be helpful to others, and to do what is meant for me to do.  Having these roots anchor me, will sink me fast. I know that.  They brought back a lot of pain, the kind of pain that hurts your heart, and for a few seconds takes your breath away.

God, why did I save these things? I remember going through the discussion with friends, should I keep them or toss them? Many folks said keep them. One woman in fact said I should keep them because “I never knew if I would ever find a love like that again, and I should have something to remember it by”.  In hindsight I should have said you are right, I will find better and I can start now by dumping these.  The thing is when I look at this pile, I don’t remember the love. I have forgotten that part. I suppose that is a blessing, otherwise it would hurt more.

The bright side to all of this, is that I will hopefully feel better about it in the morning. I will realize that the emotions I spent here wasn’t worth it, and that this bit of realization was just a bump in the road. The dark side will getting through tonight, and lamenting the fact that I am not allowed to burn inside the city limits.