I had a meltdown last week; a full-fledged, uncensored, completely embarrassing meltdown and no, I wasn’t pregnant or PMSing. My quiet, always steady, unsuspecting husband had no idea what to do with the litany of emotions that were pouring forth from my soul: ‘We are so busy’ ‘Life is too overwhelming right now’ ‘We are never together as a family’ ‘How can we go on like this?’ ‘Our house is cluttered and I never have time to really clean’ ‘We never see our friends’ ‘I can’t remember the last time I had dinner with you and the boys’ ‘I feel like we’re just treading water as a family’ ‘Don’t even THINK about playing softball this summer.’ There’s a chance I may have been a tiny bit dramatic.
One of the joys of my heart is living simply and although I know I’ve idealized the elusive Simple Life, I am still in constant pursuit of it. I am an extrovert by nature, but I also have ADHD and get overwhelmed if too much is packed into a day/week/life/closet. As a coping mechanism, I often ignore the clutter issue once it’s there. Whether it is a untidy closet or an overly busy life, sometimes tackling the problem at hand is just a little too overwhelming and way too time consuming and so life continues until the secret gets out…
One of the joys of my heart is living simply and although I know I’ve idealized the elusive Simple Life, I am still in constant pursuit of it. I am an extrovert by nature, but I also have ADHD and get overwhelmed if too much is packed into a day/week/life/closet. As a coping mechanism, I often ignore the clutter issue once it’s there. Whether it is a untidy closet or an overly busy life, sometimes tackling the problem at hand is just a little too overwhelming and way too time consuming and so life continues until the secret gets out…
Oh my word, don’t you just love that scene? I can totally relate to Monica here! When my top-secret area of clutter becomes too much to handle, the results are explosive. The contents are flung about the room and every unnecessary item is discarded or given away. Oh how I love to purge! The select few articles that are deemed worthy of residence in the closet are put back in a streamlined and orderly fashion. Speaking of organizing closets, have you read Jess's article from last week? Such great, practical advice on how to prioritize, simplify and organize the clothes in your closets!
But how does one do this with her life? I have yet to figure out how to mother children, work outside of the home, keep a home, serve the church and my neighbor, watch Greys Anatomy, feed my family, support a husband who is in graduate school, sing and be creative, cultivate friendships, maintain my own health and annoying upper-lip hair, write, be a present wife, etc., etc., etc. all while staying sane. I feel like my life is a closet cluttered with treasures that I’m not willing to part with, not even Greys Anatomy.
And so, in the days following my dreadful meltdown, I spewed the contents of my life before myself and examined every.single.thing I do inside and outside of the home. Then I asked myself the same questions about our activities that I do about questionable items in a messy closet. Is it necessary? Do we like it? Is it useful? Is it making life better or worse? Is it sacred? Depending on the answers, I either tossed it, so to speak, or kept it. There wasn’t a whole lot I could eliminate…life is just busy and I need to get a grip and deal with it just like everyone else, right? Right.
But there's also a huge part of me that wants to rage against the machine. Enough of the busyness. Enough of continually sacrificing personal and family time for work. Enough of the extra things that really do not make my life better. Enough self-imposed stress. I've had enough and so into the trash some of those things went. The biggest item that I yanked out of my "closet" is going to make a huge impact on our quality of life: goodbye, working on Saturdays! I won't miss you, my family won't miss you and I know you'll always be there if I want to squeeze you back into my life-closet one day.
Oh how amazing it feels to have a little space in my life. Room to think and to breathe and to create, or even just clean the bathroom. Can anyone out there relate? What do you do, my neighbor friend, when your life seems too busy and you just want to press the Pause button but can’t find the remote because it is buried in all of the clutter?
But how does one do this with her life? I have yet to figure out how to mother children, work outside of the home, keep a home, serve the church and my neighbor, watch Greys Anatomy, feed my family, support a husband who is in graduate school, sing and be creative, cultivate friendships, maintain my own health and annoying upper-lip hair, write, be a present wife, etc., etc., etc. all while staying sane. I feel like my life is a closet cluttered with treasures that I’m not willing to part with, not even Greys Anatomy.
And so, in the days following my dreadful meltdown, I spewed the contents of my life before myself and examined every.single.thing I do inside and outside of the home. Then I asked myself the same questions about our activities that I do about questionable items in a messy closet. Is it necessary? Do we like it? Is it useful? Is it making life better or worse? Is it sacred? Depending on the answers, I either tossed it, so to speak, or kept it. There wasn’t a whole lot I could eliminate…life is just busy and I need to get a grip and deal with it just like everyone else, right? Right.
But there's also a huge part of me that wants to rage against the machine. Enough of the busyness. Enough of continually sacrificing personal and family time for work. Enough of the extra things that really do not make my life better. Enough self-imposed stress. I've had enough and so into the trash some of those things went. The biggest item that I yanked out of my "closet" is going to make a huge impact on our quality of life: goodbye, working on Saturdays! I won't miss you, my family won't miss you and I know you'll always be there if I want to squeeze you back into my life-closet one day.
Oh how amazing it feels to have a little space in my life. Room to think and to breathe and to create, or even just clean the bathroom. Can anyone out there relate? What do you do, my neighbor friend, when your life seems too busy and you just want to press the Pause button but can’t find the remote because it is buried in all of the clutter?
