TL came to clean out all of her teaching stuff this past Saturday. I had bins of it stacked 3 by 5 deep and floor to ceiling. Most of it was, although useful to a teacher and a special needs student, trash. Pieces of stuff cobbled together to make a cheap workstation…Let’s face it, teachers don’t make enough money to go out and by expensive production batch stuff. I have to admit, most of it was pretty clever…she had made a lot of neat work jobs for her students out of discarded materials. But this stuff was trash…I couldn’t sell it and I couldn’t give it to the Goodwill. It was also trash to me because it was cluttering up my home and was an uncomfortable memory from the past.
Within the mountains of trash, there were also some toys, purses, workbooks, notebooks and crayons. Some of this stuff was useable and I had initially thought that I would go through everything and separate out the useful items for the Goodwill and discard the rest.
I went to Wal-Mart and bought some heavy, black contractor bags. They were large, 55 gallon bags. I opened one up and started tossing things in, determined to separate out the items. Before long, I was tossing everything in that I could get my hands on. So much for separation. I decided that I just wanted to get the job done. This was still an emotionally difficult and painful job. Within half an hour, I had bagged up everything that had made that mountain and that painful job was done. My garage was also uncluttered and ready to be used in anyway that I wanted.
Had I thrown away some good items? Yes. Could some of those items be used by other people? Yes. Will they now instead go to the landfill? Yes. Do I believe that my life and well-being is more important that a hundred or so pounds of inanimate stuff that will eventually wind up in the landfill anyway? A resounding yes!
I’ve found that part of the healing process in recovering from a divorce and other mental or physical monsters is to first clean out your environment. Only by removing the sources of heart ache and the burdens of clutter can you hope to heal. You can’t heal with painful memories staring you in the face. You can’t heal by wading through mountains of useless stuff (especially if it belonged to someone else). You can only effectively do wonderful things in the world, work and at home if you are healed and at peace…mentally and physically.
Within the mountains of trash, there were also some toys, purses, workbooks, notebooks and crayons. Some of this stuff was useable and I had initially thought that I would go through everything and separate out the useful items for the Goodwill and discard the rest.
I went to Wal-Mart and bought some heavy, black contractor bags. They were large, 55 gallon bags. I opened one up and started tossing things in, determined to separate out the items. Before long, I was tossing everything in that I could get my hands on. So much for separation. I decided that I just wanted to get the job done. This was still an emotionally difficult and painful job. Within half an hour, I had bagged up everything that had made that mountain and that painful job was done. My garage was also uncluttered and ready to be used in anyway that I wanted.
Had I thrown away some good items? Yes. Could some of those items be used by other people? Yes. Will they now instead go to the landfill? Yes. Do I believe that my life and well-being is more important that a hundred or so pounds of inanimate stuff that will eventually wind up in the landfill anyway? A resounding yes!
I’ve found that part of the healing process in recovering from a divorce and other mental or physical monsters is to first clean out your environment. Only by removing the sources of heart ache and the burdens of clutter can you hope to heal. You can’t heal with painful memories staring you in the face. You can’t heal by wading through mountains of useless stuff (especially if it belonged to someone else). You can only effectively do wonderful things in the world, work and at home if you are healed and at peace…mentally and physically.
First clean out your life and then work on making a difference. You have to set limits for what is okay and what isn’t. You have to give yourself permission to waste, to not recycle to throw away…especially if your mental, physical and emotional states are in havoc because of the clutter. You have to make an exception. I call this the Exception Rule. Once you are back in order, you can make plans to recycle, to organize, to do everything else that brings you peace.
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