Finding Available Space

If you could only see me now.

I’ve had to get creative. I don’t have an office right now and I can’t really change that fact. But I do live in a house with some spaces that aren’t being utilized the way they could be. I have landed in this spot just as I tend to land in most of my good spots…by accident. Or maybe through providence.

Yesterday was rough…lots of feelings about things and lots of nervous energy to release. In uncharacteristic fashion, I burned much of that energy cleaning the guest room. When I was finished and my neurons were still sparking, I started tackling piles of paper around the house.

I have a minor phobia of throwing away junk mail. I’m always worried that if I don’t shred every piece, some identity thief will dig out the one slip of paper that some stupid credit card company put in an envelope and they will open up an account and ruin us financially.

Both credit card companies and identity thieves have established records of success in this regard.

This fear results in piles of junk mail accumulating on various surfaces in my house. I tackled a few and once everything was at least ready to be shredded, I realized I needed a more active chore to adequately combat my anxiety. Sitting in front of piles of paper was not working for me.

Under our stairs we have a large coat closet which extends all the way back into another shorter enclosed space under the landing. It’s about 3 feet wide, 7 feet long, and 3.5 feet high. I think it was designed for storage of valuables because it even has a door that blends in with the wall at the back of the coat closet. It shuts and locks and there is a separate light switch. When the coats are spread across the closet, it’s virtually undetectable.

We don’t have many valuables to hideaway so it’s mostly empty. Until the tornado sirens go off and then the whole family squeezes in with a flashlight and the battery-powered weather radio. That’s been its primary use since we bought this house. The coat closet portion in the front gets messy over time. Really messy when we take time to “straighten up” for company. We basically just throw stuff in there to hide it. It’s also where we store toilet paper and paper towels from Costco. I clean it out when bad weather is forecast so that we will be able to get back to our shelter if necessary. But since we’ve been very fortunate in that regard lately, things have been piling up for a while.

What a perfect opportunity to clean it out. So I did. The entire closet. I took about an hour for me to fold all the gloves, scarves, and hats that littered the floor. There were at least 7 bags or backpacks that had been tossed in haphazardly (and not cleared of the contents). There were flags and blankets and games and two giant rafts. It looked like a yard sale in a box. I organized all of it, threw away all the garbage, and went to sleep feeling satisfied in the knowledge that this largely unused and completely unseen space was now fit for recluttering.

Fast-forward to this morning. I had a text conversation – don’t laugh, I have real conversations with this friend via text. She lives 1000+ miles away from me and if we want to talk, we have to make digital communication work for us. And we do. 

Anyway we shared amazing incites on everything from yoga’s power to improve our psychic energy to the wisdom it takes to reach out and grab ahold of grace as it floats by. Real conversation…entire paragraphs, in fact, with no abbreviations. 

And then she said something that made all of this writing feel so much more important to me. She said that reading this blog makes her feel closer to me…which is powerful.The miles between us make me sad sometimes. The miles between me and so many of my friends make me sad but this forum can be a love letter to them and about them…from me. Words are magic.

I know I’ve claimed not to care what anyone thinks about what I write…and I still feel that way…but mostly, I just don’t care if some people hate it. If you don’t like it, I’m probably not talking to you anyway. I have boundaries so there are deeply personal and private matters about me and my most important people that you will never read about in this blog. I know there are some people for whom complete and utter vulnerability is cathartic. I’m not one of those people. And when it comes to sharing someone else’s deeply personal and private concerns, that’s just selfish. The people in my life are more than just characters in my story…they are the people I love and their stories belong to them.

As our conversation wound down this morning, my extremely wise friend said she was sure that the most important thing she could be doing right now was to love her people and allow them to love her.

I responded that I believe that is the best way for us to become who we are meant to be. I recognize that writing is part of that process for me.

And then I realized that I had a blog post for the day…but I lamented in the unlikelihood of it getting written inside my house while the family was present.

She said…you have a pretty big closet you could hide in.

Indeed I do.

And so I am.

I guess I've learned to never ignore an urge to declutter. Also, never underestimate the capacity of your people to help you become who you are meant to be.