Cleaning House

A few months ago I started to clean out parts of my life. I have been experiencing a lot of shifting and changing in my world and clearing out and cleaning house has been very cathartic for me. We rented a huge dumpster and I started to literally clear the debris of my life away. Papers, old books, broken chairs, items “to be fixed” that were never fixed, old rugs, the huge “potential yard sale pile” that I never got to that sat in the garage and became destroyed by the elements- all of this went into the dumpster. Then I started on clothes asking myself, ” Does this shirt serve me any more? Do I really need this skirt?”. The more I asked the more I realized that NOPE, I didn’t need most of it. All of this stuff was creating clutter in my life. I was done with it. The more I released, the easier it became. I started to look at the really hard things “I know I have had this dress for 20 years and I have so many good memories in it- but it no longer fits me. Do I really need this dress? Nope, I’m done with it.” The lightness that I felt from getting rid of all of the things I no longer needed was exhilarating.

I now realize that the next step has to be decluttering the internal me. I need to let go of what no longer serves me (and perhaps never did), and I have to accept the fact that like holding onto the physical junk in my house, holding onto many things in the attic of my mind is just creating clutter. I am making a commitment to myself to stop emotionally hoarding things due to fear. So here it is- I am throwing it all away. I am done.

Im done feeling bad about the fact that I think all.the.time and that I have things to say all.the.time.. It doesn’t make me better or worse than anyone else that I have a super active inner life, but for some reason in my life I decided that this part of who I am is something that is bad. I am letting go of making excuses, dumbing down, dismantling my natural inclination to be a voice, to continuously ask questions, to challenge. I am no longer making excuses for any of  the subversive bullshit that a woman still has to deal with in our society…. (wage inequality, horrible maternity leave policies, gaslighting, double standards for dress codes etc). It doesn’t matter how much of a wage earner a woman is, what kind of mother a woman is, what kind of lover,friend,spouse,teacher,human a woman is….so many of us  find ourselves apologizing for our perceived inequities. I am done feeling bad for saying  thousands of words because I think ALL THE TIME about 10 things at once. I like that, and I dont want to change it.  I am not longer going to dim my light. I am no longer going to feel inadequate. I am no longer going to apologize for the way that my existence just seems to push people’s buttons and trigger them (and that bums me out more than anyone could ever know because I would never intentionally do that). I’m done feeling silly for not writing in paragraph form, the way I speak to people, my horrible punctuation skills or the way I have a fondness for drinking wine, dancing and making really deliciously crass comments. I am no longer secretly going to feel that I cant be beautiful, sexy, AND smart. I am no longer going to act like more of a man to be more of a woman…..and I am never, EVER, going to apologize or explain myself for loving myself,being my biggest fucking fan and putting myself first. (Yep, I know that’s hard for some of us to digest, but before you get upset read this ). I am not going to be afraid of my shadow side, because my darkness is as much a part of me as my light. I am done with telling a man who hits on me  that “I’m married”, as a way to turn him down instead of just saying “no”.  I am throwing away my insecurity that I still like to wear a bikini after having two kids and being over the age of 40. I am finally letting go of the last little souvenirs of a 3/4 of a lifetime of needing to be liked, (but I am holding onto my understanding that sometimes people don’t like me, and that’s ok). I am done with resentment and finger-pointing.

So dear amazing people in my life, since I am making this commitment to myself, I will make a commitment to you. I will try my best to listen to all of your words (and that’s a hard one that I am really working on every single day), marvel in your beauty, (yep sweet brothers I mean you as well…) celebrate your strengths, hold you up when you are in pain, sit in awe in the YOU that is you and when I can’t do that due to my history and story, try to find the enough self love to look at you and to never ask you to be any different than you are because the essence of you is hard for me. I promise that because I honor myself and take care of who I am and what I need, I will try to never let my fear eclipse your happiness. I promise that I will never ask you to change, and that I will see that asking you to change is a sign of MY unhappiness with myself. I will promise to  try never forget that your voice is different from mine and just as important. I promise to love you….and I promise to let you know that when I can no longer keep that promise and accept that it is something I need to look at inside myself. I promise that I will take responsibility for the moments I don’t honor you because I am no longer taking care of myself. NO matter how hard it is- Im never going to ask you to dim your light or for you to deny your shadow side, because your darkness is as much a part of you as your light. I promise to be a mirror for all that is wonderful in you. I promise that I will be present with you and when I cant, let you know that. I promise that I will hold your hand when we can walk together and not judge you when you need to walk away, no matter how much it hurts me. I promise to never hand you my junk and ask that you hold onto it for me in the attic of your heart, and I ask that if you are holding some of it there because I asked you to so long ago- that you give it back to me….It’s ok. I’ve been cleaning house. I have some extra room now.