Opening The Year

Getting out from under the unbearable weight of the holidays has been a good thing for me. I must admit that I have been less than inspired lately. In my blog. In my housework. In my life. Being without inspiration can be a dark and lonely place. Where do you begin without inspiration? Where do you begin to clean up a mess? Where do you begin to make sense of the chaos? Where do you begin to even make a change for the better?

I said yesterday that I don't really do resolutions. I am sure that I am not the only one who starts the new year with these grandiose ideas only to see them fall to the wayside in just a few short weeks, days....maybe even hours. Yet, when you stand at the brink of a new year...with new possibilities...you can't help but think....FRESH START. There has to come a point in your life where you draw a line in the sand and say: "No more. Things need to change."

I am hoping that I am starting to draw that line today. I hit a brick wall. I looked at the complete and utter mess that was my house and I said...UGH. Things need to be different. I started in on my kids' room with a vengeance. Well....it really didn't start out with a vengeance. I went in originally just to put their beds back in order. I felt the need to have a small corner of order...somewhere...anywhere.

Yet, how do you stop at just the beds? Pretty soon I was filling bag after bag with....junk....and garbage. (How in the world did they collect so much junk??) Then, I started planning all the stuff that was going to be bagged up and donated....or bagged up and stored away for my future grandchildren (Lord willing!)...or stored away to be sold on Ebay in about 30 years for our retirement or a trip to Hawaii! (hmmmm...interesting thought!)

Then, I got down to the nitty gritty of it all. I went under the boys' beds. Oh. My. Word. There are not enough words in my vocabulary to describe the mess under there. I took the lid of a box and used it like a backhoe to drag all the paraphernalia out. When I was done, I just sat there in this mound of stuff. I think at that very moment, I began to draw the line. Things have got to change.

I began to see where I had allowed the weight of life to stop me in my tracks. Shoving things under the bed seemed easier than dealing with them at the moment. I'm not saying that I shoved all that junk under their beds...but isn't that how life is? Slowly, one little item at a time, we overfill our buckets. Soon they are overflowing, but we just shove the excess under the bed instead of getting rid of it. One little item at a time my kids slowly brought all that stuff in their rooms and it became a mountain.

Gotta move that mountain.

I've got a lot of hauling to do. I am a classic pack rat. I know that I am better than I was when I was Daria's age. (I won't even begin to tell you about Daria's room!) Yet, everything has a purpose...a possibility. You never know when you might need this or that. Oy...the logic of it all. I wish that I was superhuman and could tackle all that I want to tackle in my household. I am going to go through every cupboard, every closet, every drawer...and organize and purge. I can feel the weight lifting even mentioning it. If I can get the nerve up, I am going to ask my Organizing Fiend, I mean Friend, to come help me sometime. (Lord, help us.)

The line is going to be drawn in other areas of my life, too. I'm going to have to do a lot of praying over those other areas. My whole family is going to need a lot of prayer for these other areas, too. To succeed, we are going to have to draw the line together.

Well, it is late. As I ponder these thoughts in the dark of the night, I couldn't sleep. I had to lay all this stuff out so that I could rest. Opening a new year is like opening a new calendar....the days are yet to be written on. With that in mind, this year, I am hoping to take charge of the pen...and not let the pen take charge of me.

Good night.