Randy and I spent most of the last 10 days putting our house back together after the contractor claimed they were done with water damage repairs from Hurricane Ian.
The repairs started back in mid-February when they ripped out the ceiling and walls in the master bedroom, and the vanity, toilet, ceiling and walls in the master bath. The master closet was gutted down to the studs. Before they did that, we had to move everything out of the entire master bedroom wing of the house. And the only place to go with all that stuff, and still be able to live fairly comfortably in the house, was to pile it all in the dining room.
Pile was an apt description of what that room looked like for the last 10 weeks. I love puzzles and if I do say so myself, I filled every available nook and cranny in that room. It was quite the Jenga feat of what we used to call cramming 10 pounds of sh*t in a 5 pound bucket. I made a path just barely wide enough to get to the little chest freezer we keep in the corner of the dining room. Luckily, that chest freezer is right next to the wand so we could also open and close the plantation blinds every day. Not that we could actually see out the window.
I carefully placed the bedroom items so we could open and close dresser drawers because we were still living out of the dressers. Shoes were piled in stacks under the table, also accessible, because we needed to get to those too. Our hanging clothes were divided and scattered in three other closets in the house. Trying to find stuff we needed along the way was a challenge. It was disconcerting to have the house in such a condition of confusion. At least for the first week or so.
After a surprisingly short time, the disorder just seemed…normal. We walked past it all every day without really noticing the messiness. As we became less and less aware of the disarray, the rest of the house devolved into more and more disarray. The photo shows how we lived for 10 weeks. We may not have consciously noticed it, but subconsciously it is enervating and tiresome.
Isn’t that typical of how you can learn to live in, tolerate, and often not even keep seeing, junk that surrounds you? And that junk can be physical, mental, or emotional.
I had a discussion with my niece over the weekend about that very subject. It’s been my experience that clutter has an insidious ability to creep up on us. You walk in the door and lay down everything you carry in from the car. If you don’t need to move it somewhere to use right away, in a very (very, very) short time, you quit seeing it there and it just becomes part of the landscape. Same with magazines, toys, clothes, mail, needy people, poor choices, bad behavior, etc. When you don’t have a place for everything and don’t take the time to put it away, clutter accumulates EVERYWHERE. Living among it just becomes (seemingly) normal. Sooner or later though it either overwhelms and breaks you and you do something about cleaning it up, or you ignore or tolerate it and become depressed, irritable, and sick without understanding why.
I’m pooped. Existing in such an abnormal mess wore me out mentally. For the last week or so, as we cleaned up and fixed the awful messes left by the contractors, I’ve been working harder than I’m used to. And that wore me out physically. Thank goodness for those sliding Magic Moving Men thingies you can put under heavy furniture to move it around your house. They’ve been physical salvation for us.
This whole experience reminded me of the countless times I vowed not to let stuff overwhelm my life anymore. And I vowed to fix it this time, and never let it happen. Again.
In anticipation of rehanging all the wall art in our bedroom I bought an industrial size package of Command Picture strips last week. I knew I had Command strips at home, but not what type or whether or not there were enough. After renewing my vow to conquer clutter, I pulled out the Command strips drawer (which also includes hooks, stick on felt pads and other assorted household junk) and organized it. It only took about a half hour to take stock of what I already owned, throw away all the packaging from about 10 partials, and figure out how to consolidate and make it all easily accessible and identifiable when I needed it. That felt really good. Like I’d actually accomplished something productive. Which, indeed, I had.
It was a small step for me, but a big boost for my psyche. A Chinese proverb says “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” So true. Often, we don’t begin a big task because it seems so overwhelming, or because we don’t know where or how to begin. I put off all kinds of things for those reasons, but when I finally do something…anything…to get started, the task isn’t nearly as daunting as I imagine it will be.
No matter how pooped, how tired, how overwhelmed, how unsure, how confused, how sick of it, you are, do something, anything, to begin whatever it is you’re facing. Before you know it, it, and everything you’re feeling about it, will be behind you and you can get on with your life…your good, normal, looking forward to the future, life. It’s good to have the pooped behind you.
P.S. We don’t use our dining room much. But it feels great to have it and the rest of the house back in array, as opposed to disarray. Our whole life seems so much calmer and brighter. Although that could have something to do with being able to see the sun shining through the window on the front of the house again. 😊
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