Cleaning Out

I had dinner with several long-time friends this evening, walked when I got home, and then sat to write, and my mind was a clutter of random thoughts, shooting off in a dozen different directions. I meditated. More clutter. In my drafts folder for the blog, I found a piece that I thought I'd posted over a month ago.  It was somewhat out of date, but, probably not by accident, it is also something that has been on my mind lately.  Cleaning out.

In late December, I cleaned out all the unsolicited cosmetics with which various companies have gifted me. It freed up significant space in my medicine cabinet and left me even freer psychically. Then, I took on my bag bin.  In the 1980s when almost no one except Kay was reusing bags, I was taking the same paper grocery bags back to the store week-in, week-out. At one point, I began dating them to see how long they would last.  One lasted a whole year--52 weeks.  So you can imagine how delighted I was at the advent of bags which were actually designed for reuse.

But then everyone and his/her cousin discovered the reusable bags were perfect little billboards. Every conference or show gives them away. My public radio station gives them away.  When I looked at apartments a few years ago, they gave them away.  Even my local hardware store gave them away. When DC passed a bill to charge for paper or plastic, the stores gave them away.  All those bags and only four or five that I used regularly.  Most of the others were gone with the start of the year.

The second week of January I went into a sorting frenzy with books.  I donated about six boxes to the library in my building.  They don't take textbooks, so I have another box in the corner of my living room still looking for a home. Those seven boxes were the books at which I knew I would never look again.  I fussed as I contemplated at least 10 boxes moved out of my offices or my storage bin await sorting. I was able to get rid of one box, but there are nine more.

The only pleasing I needed to do was my heart, and I had struggled.  What would be part of my future? What would not?  Do I throw away hundreds of flyers for professional speaking which were really great designs, but were printed at just the time the dot.com bust and 9/11 killed the keynote conference-speaking circuit I'd been on?  Of course, I do.  That 16-year-old photo is almost unrecognizable.  How do I let the Universe know I am open to professional speaking...just not the badly dated flyer, I had wondered, wanting to be careful not to send the wrong message.

Then something funny happened.  I got distracted. My class and refugee resettlement activities picked up the pace, and I was able to back-burner the sorting.  I did, however, leave several of the boxes right in the middle of my closest so that I cannot easily get to more than a few clothes without high-stepping over them. I didn't want to forget about the sorting. That's how I've been dressing since the end of the year.

A week or so ago I began to be impatient. Not with the climbing over the boxes, although that has been an annoyance.  I got frustrated at the time my class was taking because now I knew exactly what to get rid of and didn't have time to do it. Almost all of it.  As sparks within me have been ignited for these new directions, the mind-numbing boredom with my old work has become clear to me.  While I'd like to think I have the capability to do whatever I need to do to support myself, my heart is shouting...not whispering, but shouting..."NOT THAT!"  There was a time when I was energized by the work, but that is definitely the past.  Enough already.  I am ready to move on.

I am at the point in any class during which final projects and exams are occurring, so I must stay at it. While there is part of me that would like to just chuck it all, I suspect that there are things in each box that I do want to keep, but not much. Yet, having taken time to reconnect with my heart, I am certain that the decision-making will be easy.

All that brings me back to my intention to listen to what I know in my heart--the very purpose of this blog. In my heart I know that my future lies in what brings me to life, and what I did for 25 years no longer does that.  To hang on to even one shred that isn't aligned with my future would again be a breach of my integrity.  I am just unwilling to go there, and I have to believe that if the Universe has given me this spark, it will make sure I can support myself in my new directions.