After Decluttering - Journal

 


I think this has been one of the busiest holidays I've ever known, and that is despite the fact that my sister and her friend did significantly more work on decluttering than I did. With my osteoarthritis and fibromyalgia firing up, I did my best and took care of various other matters as well. Here are some points about the experience:

1. People do the best they can with the emotional (and physical) capacity they have (Danny Raede).

2. There are kind people in this world who are happy to help. I do not know why I didn't get help before now.

3. There can be a grief component to decluttering. This has a different impact on different people.

4. A young chef creating gourmet meals in the background is good for morale.

5. Systems can be created for maintaining order. For example, coke cans go straight in the recycling basket rather than spreading themselves out around the house in some kind of art deco-style artistic arrangement. 

6. Having space is psychologically and physically rejuvenating.

7. It can take a while to find stuff, but it will generally be somewhere.

8. Clothes can actually make it all the way to a wardrobe and onto a hanger without having an existential crisis. 

9. There are items that are quite prolific in our house and therefore we won't need to buy more of them for a while. 

10. We don't appear to have a proper cheese grater and we might or might not need one depending on the culinary endeavours of young chef.

11. A bit of fluff doesn't need a week's notice before it goes in the bin. 

12. Something relevant that I've reflected on over the last year is this: "He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me." I feel that and I'm thankful for the people who gave so much of their time and energy. 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Butterfly Notes: How Creativity Returned Through Fibromyalgia

Image
  Creativity Doesn’t Go Completely AWOL — Eventually It Finds New Ways to Flow Back in the day, classical music was my second language. Piano, trumpet, French horn — they were part of my vibe and how I communicated. I didn’t just play music; I lived it. (I was pretty ordinary at the brass instruments, by the way, but I had my moments.) About 22 years ago, Fibromyalgia moved in like a speeding road train on the Warrego Highway in Queensland, and my right hand completely seized up. Playing became painful and mostly impossible. For a while, I didn’t know how to find my way back to music — but over time, I softened to the idea that things can be done differently. Turns out, creativity can flutter back like a happy butterfly with more longevity than your average lepidoptera. These days, I compose using Notion Mobile — no strain, just space to breathe. I bring my classical background into this digital world and rework pieces I used to play. Some are gentler, more spacious. Some ar...
Read more

Little spheres on the ground - 5 incidents

Image
I've had a few incidents with spherical items ending up spread all over the ground. Why this is interesting to me at the moment, I cannot tell you but here goes! 1. Recently, I arrived home from shopping and somehow dropped a bag that contained quite a few cherry tomotoes. These small round red things dutifully rolled all around the garage forcing me to exert an inordinate amount of energy hunting them down. Not ideal. 2. A couple of years ago I had a similar incident involving blueberries. The difference that time was that the garage door was open, and seeing as though we live on a slope, the items started rolling down the driveway onto the street. Fun times. I didn't really need to pick the blueberries up seeing as they were organic, outside and not causing too much trouble. It was an interesting spectacle seeing them going down the hill - like slow motion. 3. Years ago, I started working at a new school and there was a beanbag in the room that I was assigned to. My co-worker...
Read more

Feeling surprised - 11 things

Image
  Here are some things that I've found surprising lately: 1. The extent of the ALP victory in the recent Australian election. 2. Windiness and/ or rain nearly every time I visit my smaller school. It makes for invigorating ping pong games. I think a couple of balls are imbedded in the foundations of the new classroom block. The students were told they couldn't be removed. 3. Musical instruments in my classroom at my bigger school, following the flood threat that accompanied cyclone Alfred. (I love musical instruments). 4. Learning that I bowl (cricket but with a vigoro action) at 45 kph which is officially too slow for my younger nephew. 5. Words that young people use. A student recently told me that she felt "glorious" in response to a kindness activity that we did. 6. Other less palatable words that young people used last year. 7. Change in general. Feeling entrenched in situations and then seeing them shift all of a sudden.  8. My drawings. Unpredictable. Aimed at ...
Read more