Clutter

I am officially back east. I flew with Rosie across the country and am settling into life with my parents. It’s just temporary – until I find a place to live – but it is a bit tricky moving from living all alone to moving into my childhood bedroom. The room had become an overflow room for my folks, as old childhood rooms are meant to be. So I’ve been cleaning it out a bit and trying to make some space for myself. There’s still a lot to do, but it’s getting there.

I’m realizing that I really don’t like clutter. X and I lived in clutter for a long time and I think that really sapped energy from our lives. Once he left, I really focused on purging and cleaning. I was determined to make my house a comfortable place to be, a sanctuary. I built some really good habits of tidying up and staying on top of the cleaning. I cleaned up the kitchen each night, put away the laundry after I folded it, vacuumed regularly. And I purged. I sold so many things, brought multiple tubs to the thrift store, and shoved items into the hands of friends who were too nice to say no.

Now, I’m in this room that is cluttered and I feel the need to purge all of it. It’s not my stuff, which makes that an unreasonable urge, but it’s there just the same. My mom let me go through the closet and make a pile of trash, keep and donate. Trash and donate were 90% of the items we removed. Now, I’m looking around at even more items I want gone. It’s like this insatiable need to clean up my life. To regain control and make it what I want.

And that’s good because that’s really where I am. I’m in this transition of rebuilding. Today I went out looking for a new car. I’m submitting a couple of job applications on Monday. I’m looking at houses. And in the meantime I’m carving out a little space for me at my parents’ house. I’m clearing the land to build something new, so to speak.