Weight Weight Just Love Me – Clutter – Day 38
Michelle LaBrosse, CCPM, PMP, PMI-ACP,RYT
The joys of a clean counter is what is creating more love in my life today.
Two t’s are two t’s too many in the word clutter. Remove the r too, and you have clue – as in get a clue. When there is too much clutter it’s hard to get a clue. After being gone from the home front for months on end, only popping in to do my laundry and pack for my next adventure, I felt the need today to tame the clutter monster that had over taken my favorite room in the house – the kitchen. Well, plus I am totally inspired after working in the amazing kitchen at cooking school. Great time to harness the inspiration from that experience to whip my kitchen into shape. Before that could happen though, I had to go through months of mail, and various things that had gravitated to the top of the counter from other people’s ideas of what needed to be there. (I have many guests in and out of my place). And lets not even get into what was in that fridge – a little scary.
It got me contemplating – where is there clutter in the landscape of how I love myself? Am I holding onto loving others more than myself to my own detriment? Like how did I graciously accept where others thought things belonged in my kitchen even though it wasn’t suited to my tastes? Does my desire to get along at the expense of my own preferences cause clutter in my heart? I do have to admit though I feel so great sitting here in this beautiful kitchen that is clean and clutter free from my own hand – and it is just this moment I have to be more loving to myself. So thank you to all those who helped me create this very moment as I do realize it was from a place of love you were in my kitchen enjoying it in your own unique ways as well. (Or possibly doing what you thought would bring me more happiness).
At times my desires to have things the way I want them, inspire others to call me a “princess.” Yet, I am not a princess, I am a Queen. I was named the Queen of Mud Bay years ago when I got this house on the point (in Mud Bay). When I sold that house, I happily gave that title over to the new owner. I did like being a Queen though and am in fact the Queen of my own life. As the Queen, I do have a say in how I would like my world to be and clutter, well it makes me just a bit crazy.
When my children were young and they would bring home the vast amount of papers from school – some made it to sacred display zone – posted on the fridge. But most seemed like someone had left the door open on a fall day and were strewn around the house like fallen leaves. Routinely we’d put on our favorite clean the house music, and more often than not, these random school papers found their way into this catchall box by the front door. It was like the black hole of school papers – went in but never came out. I do occasionally find one of the girls elementary school papers amongst important office papers, in stray boxes that get unloaded in my office when I move, and it’s always a bitter sweet moment. How they came to arrive there is always a mystery – the open door in fall analogy is all I can figure. I’ve moved several times since the girls elementary days and that catchall box by the front door has packed along. Years later, I happened by the box one day in the basement of the home I was living in at the time – when they were both in college. I opened it – yes all those papers were still in there, mixed in with dog toys, and other scattered remnants of our earlier life. I was at once relieved and at the same time nostalgic for those clutter filled days of little ones with their never ending papers from school.
So clutter – it’s something I do love and at the same time, I love to enjoy a space when I’ve cleaned the clutter. The operative word here is love. Loving myself more is helping me love all elements of an artifact many people love to hate – clutter. I prefer to love to love clutter – both it’s existence and it’s non-existence. Clutter means life, means caring, means community, means family – all the things I love. Clutter also means cleaning clutter which is oh so satisfying on this cold and rainy fall day.
Kate’s comment: I love finding old clutter, too! It needs to age to gather that nostalgia – otherwise it’s just a pain. But, gosh, did the thought of fall leaves blowing around bring back east coast memories of playing in the front yard. I have this theory about clutter – most of us have a different level of clutter we are happy with before we hit a tipping point and MUST clean up. If we can find someone with the same tipping point as us, we should keep them close – they’re our modern soul mate.
