Making Space for the Holidays

Today is the first day in eons that I've felt like tending to my own belongings and it's just so lovely to simply clean my make up brushes. A small thing, a tiny thing, but huge in meaning for me. Isn't it fascinating how it can be so?

I used to be one of those people who could clean an entire apartment in three hours, down to bleaching the tile grout with a toothbrush. But when I became quite ill nine years ago the ability to be neat and tidy about my surroundings, or at least to whip them into shape quickly, seemed to just float away - and when I would clean and reorganize I could only do a fraction of what I could before in the same amount of time, and I was left feeling not that nice satisfaction of a job well done, but this strange uneasiness, and uncomfortable restlessness - similar, frankly, to my experience with taking vicodin (which I avoid like the plague now).

Happily my health has greatly improved, but I'm still challenged frequently by lack of energy and my inability to clean my apartment has stuck. I'm sure there's a very feng shui reason for all of this, I'm sure I've got my chi going in all the wrong directions. You would never know to look at my apartment that I am a very mentally organized person who meets deadlines.

But I am. And of course what I do when I look at my apartment and it's not to my liking, is make fierce judgements about myself. It's particularly difficult at this time of year when one has memories of holidays past that look ever so perfect in hindsight (even though at the time they might not have felt that way).

So of late I've been doing my best to have a new perspective, to look at my stacks of magazines to be recycled, and clothes to be laundered, and items to be donated, and paper work to be organized and filed, and dusty kitchen tile with fresh eyes, and to view my fierce judgements with curiosity aove everything else.

And the answer that often comes back is that I'm worth more than a messy apartment. I am living my life more to my liking, more from the center of my heart than I have ever before, doing things I only longed to do for so many years (like writing, or creating a non profit event), there is much to be proud of, even in the middle of a dusty mess. This mess isn't the sum of me.

As a society we've been so obsessed with outward appearances for so long now that it pushed us (from the inside and out, let's be fair) to spend beyond our means to keep up with the ever more glamorous "Joneses" - both real and fictionally. We have felt if we couldn't be neat and clean and shiny and new (and our homes the same) than we weren't worth inviting to the party, indeed, we weren't worth having a party.

The fascinating thing about our downturn in the economy is that we are finally facing that life has been challenging for many people for a long time, and perhaps it's time that we all got quite a bit more real about what truly matters.

The holidays are for everyone, no matter what state their apartment (or lack thereof) is in.