Monthly Archives: September 2012

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Lessons Learned from Cleaning the Closet

Things I’ve learned in cleaning out my closet.

 

First: I’m great at starting things and terrible at following through. I think most people I know fall into this to some degree or another, but the greatest evidence of this in the clutter I found was the countless journals. Each one would begin strongly and end before the pages were filled. Calendars were similar…lots of notes in the early months, tapering off to nothing notable by the end.

 

Yes, this does terrify me when I think of homeschooling. I do not want to fall into the easy temptation of starting well and finishing poorly.

 

Makes me think of the Eugene Peterson book titled, “A Long Obedience in the Same Direction.”  Such a visual example to me of how easy it is to get lazy.

 

Second: I don’t like to throw things away. Catalogs. Notes. Papers. School papers. Drawings. Notebooks. Pictures. Scribbles.  Yep, after 9 garbage bags (I told you it was a big closet!!) I am aware that I need to throw more things away. I filled up boxes for each of the boys with school papers and drawings and cards from their grandparents and friends. Little things to look back on some day and remember. Which leads me to number three.

 

Third:  I’m really glad I don’t like to throw things away. Okay, I could do better with the scribbles and the catalogs. I found, however, the history of the last few years in the cards that my folks have sent. The messages from my mom of well-wishes for birthdays or get well cards when someone was sick. Notes that were in her familiar pen (and I can picture her hands as I think of this), that began to be not so familiar. Shorter messages with a stilting cursive. Then just her name. Then the latest ones with Dad signing her name.

 

There is history in the things I am saving, and I save them because they carry that history. Some day when I am gone, if these things survive floods and fires (which many things did not for Steve’s folks in the Nashville flood a couple years ago), my children will go through these boxes. I have no doubt I will make Steve lug them to wherever we land next, although they are at least organized. My children will go through them and they will see the notes and the love and the stories that are held by fragile pieces of paper.

 

Pieces of paper that tell a story beyond just the words written on the paper. And I am thankful I didn’t throw them away and they are safely tucked away now.

 

Fourth: I realized that life has a way of getting in your attention in peculiar ways. Cleaning out a closet. Yes, the cards make me think of my mom and her progression in her dementia. They also make me laugh and bring back great memories of the boys and of this amazing life I’ve experienced. I did not expect the clothes to catch me off guard. The yellow sleeveless dress that I have not fit into in I don’t know how long, and the red suede jacket. They have hung faithfully in the corner, mostly ignored. Tonight, though, they stood as another reminder….that I’ll never go clothes shopping with mom again. I won’t have the opportunity for her to tell me what she thinks looks good, or for her to send an outfit or some makeup off to me, just because.
And that is painful.

 

We humans adapt to things in amazing ways. I’m reading a book about women in France who were in the Resistance against Hitler. The things they adapted to are astounding.

 

We all do it all the time, though. We adapt to pain when our bodies begin to fail. We adapt to pain when relationships begin to change. We adapt to life as a family instead of an individual when we marry. We adapt to new places to live, new jobs, new relationships. We adapt. And in the adapting, I think sometimes, we grow a bit numb to the reality. We grow numb to the pain, because if we focus continually on our sadness or pain we become unable to move forward.

 

Sometimes, just like pricking our finger on something we didn’t see, something peculiar will get our attention and God will remind us that there are greater realities we need to pay attention to.

 

So, the closet is clean (well, almost…but so very nearly done I thought I could go ahead and write about it). Trash is discarded. Things not needed are ready for someone who might need them.

 

And memories have been sparked. In the midst of cleaning out clutter God has spoken.

 

“Pay attention.”

 

“Don’t be lazy…be consistent and follow through to the end. Persevere.”

 

“Mourn.”

 

“Laugh.”

 

This life He has given is amazing. It is filled with color, with sounds, with joys and sorrows…and sometimes those enormous realities are carried in the frailties of paper and fabric. He uses these little things to remind us who we are and what is important.

 

 

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Closet from Hoarders….

2:25 am.

I am in the midst of cleaning out my closet. I should take a picture.

My closet has been neglected for most of the time we have lived in this house. 7 years. It has become the catch-all of the house and has piled high enough it would be respected on the Hoarder’s show.

The rest of the house is lived-in. Most days it is not too bad, although there are always evidences of the children. Socks on the floor. X-box remotes on the couch. The endless supply of kids plastic character cups that can be found in the strangest places.

Lived-in, but not out-of-control, and usually just a few minutes away from being respectable. I’ve become a better keeper of the house as I have aged.

Except that dang closet. I’ve been working on it for the last hour or so and have made a scratch. Not a dent but a scratch.

I have this inkling that when I get it clean…I mean really organized and clean…it will mark something for me. It will mark the first step to the other projects around the house that I would like to get to.

The problem is I keep finding treasures as I clean. Little notes from the boys. Pictures that I’d forgotten. Books I want to read.

Things tucked away because they were important, but have been lost in a bunch of “stuff”. Mind you, this closet is a walk-in that comfortably houses two 6′ bookshelves along with all the built in shelving. I can cram a lot of stuff in that closet.

I think this is one of the things that gets me when I watch a show like Hoarders…we want to keep things because they mean something, and then all of a sudden we find that the important things are mixed in with the trash and we’ve lost track of which is which so that everything means less. The people on Hoarder’s started holding on to stuff almost invariably because there was a tragedy.

Tragedies scare us and they rattle us. And we want to hold on to something to remind us that we’re still here and we’re still part of something and we still belong….and there are still important things.

If all we are doing, though, is holding on to things to find some source of comfort, eventually we look and we are holding on to trash.

Life is like that, yes?

We hold on to habits, to ways of doing things, to thoughts, to activities…to people even…because we want to know that we are part of something. That we belong and there are important things that mean something in our lives.

Sometimes, though, all that stuff becomes cluttered with things that don’t mean anything, and we find ourselves overwhelmed.

Sometimes we need to clean things out. We need to clean out our thoughts, our habits and our activities…even the people we are investing in…to find what is really important.

When we’ve cleaned the stuff out, it is easier to breathe and to be efficient and to see that what is important is not the stuff. What is important is that we are created and made and called and loved by a Living God. We are His and we are not alone or forgotten. The stuff has not made us valuable…we are valuable just in being us. Unique, amazing creatures.

Back to the closet I go…redeeming the things that are truly important and finding them places where they can be remembered and enjoyed, free from the distractions of the trash. Back as well to redeem the things that are important in life, and to release the things that are not….