The catastrophe behind the scenes that has to stop

My environment is a HUGE, HUGE, HUGE factor in my mental health.  In most people’s really; but I find most people have never lived differently for any length of time and therefore they believe that an environment change wouldn’t change their mental health or sense of peace or level of anxiety.

Because changing it would be hard.

I get the same thing from people about food.  It’s annoying.  It matters.  Like, it really matters.  But nobody wants to do the hard things.  They will convince themselves that it doesn’t matter and it’s easy to do if they’re not in a lot of pain.  I’m not in pain, but I want more for my and my kids lives.

Sometime last June, a friend handed me a copy of Marie Kondo’s book “The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up“.  I had read blog posts and seen vlog entries, but the book was different.  SHORT and different.  It gave me a completely different level of clarity about the process (often short-handed to “konmari”) and understanding about the order of operations.  I ripped through my clothing and have never been happier.  Nearly a year later, my clothes are still orderly and accessible and I can honestly say they get worn more because there is nothing in there I hate and pass over.  I did finally toss a shirt that just would not fit me no matter how much I loved it–which started to make me feel like crap.

As you could see, I didn’t finish the punchlist of things to konmari.

How can you feel good about yourself when you are surrounded with clutter and/or dirt and/or disrepair and/or chaos?  I feel like this gives us a significant sense of what we’re worth… who we are…

How can you find the stuff you need when you need it?  What kind of extra stress is that adding?  Tiny bits (or notsotiny bits) here and there adding up.  What’s that doing to your cortisol level?  How much money do you spend replacing crap you can’t find or stuff that got broken because it wasn’t put where it belonged?  What could you have bought (or paid off) with that money?

I keep thinking about how distracted people are–how distracted kids are–and then you look around and realize that our grandmothers and their requirement for pristinely made beds with the hospital corners and “everything has a place, everything in it’s place” gave a child an awful lot of organizational sense and clean space to focus their attention.

So… this particular mama had E. NOUGH.  Like… enough enough.  I left the house in a fit because Mama’s understanding had been abused and Mama was no longer having it.  The house was declared mine and anyone choosing to live in my house would need to please The Queen.  We had just borrowed some money to renovate enough to sell the house next year and I put my foot down that NOTHING was going to happen until the house was finished being cleaned, organized, purged, whatever.  Every space–including the basement (which is being partially finished) would need to be purged, organized, and cleaned.  Period.  I did not care how long it took, but it had damn well better get done because Mama was done being nice.  Mama was done asking.  Mama was done being hurt and upset about the environment she lived in, and Mama wasn’t going to wait around for her family to care enough about Mama’s feelings to make the change.

Mama mattered to Mama.  If you didn’t care about Mama’s feelings she was done caring about your feelings on the matter.

So… Mama went on strike.  Chores not done?  Oh… we’ll have to stay home.  You get the idea.  I don’t condone this as a first course of action by ANY stretch, but it WAS the point that my own household unfortunately got to.

It worked.

Within 2-3 days, the kids section of the basement was cleaned, chores were being done in a timely manner.  The weekend hit with beautiful weather and NO. THING. on the calendar (the soccer coach even sent an e-mail to confirm that we were not missing something).  After 2 years of my refusing to drive my hooptie van with growing rust spots on it (that there was NO WAY IN HELL we could afford to replace) and my husband telling me that there was no point in repairing it because the rust would continue to grow…

HE FIXED IT.

I am so mad I could spit.

HE F*#@ING FIXED IT.

Nothing has screamed more loudly at me about my self worth as that stupid rust  on my van.  And nothing has screamed more loudly at me about what my family thinks of me than my husband’s refusal to fix it and my kids refusal to do their chores without me nagging them (because I am NOT a nag by nature).

The house is looking better and I am feeling better enough to join in now.  My office needs to become a place where I can be productive again.  I’m going to tackle it in 10-15 minute chunks and just know that every 10-15 minutes worth of work is more than if I’d done nothing.  It will get there.

What area are you going to tackle this week?  What small space of chaos can you make better to give yourself some calm in the storm?

#jointhejourney