Flinging My Way to Happiness

It's been a long, slow project that has been weighing on me for over a year now. When we first found our five-bedroom-plus-office home, DH and I agreed that the office would be his, and I would take the smallest of the bedrooms upstairs as A Room of Her Own. The space is tiny, probably 7'x6'. But it's a perfect little spot for meditating, praying, doing yoga, reading a book, wrapping gifts, journaling...you get the picture.


Unfortunately, when we moved into our monsterously large house with absolutely no storage space, my tiny Room of Her Own became a nasty dumping ground for all sorts of detritus. Wedding china, clothing, old bills, boxes of books and unsorted junk of all kinds were piled to obscene heights in that tiny room. No carpeting was visible between the boxes of stuff. It was a bloody nightmare.

DH affectionately called it the FEMA Room, because it looked as though some sort of natural disaster had occurred in there. Whenever he said the name, I got twerped off with him about it. The fact of the matter is, most of the stuff in there belonged to ME. MY books, MY junk, MY old bills. I was twerped off with the name of the room because DH was darned right...it did look like there had been a disaster in there. The room was a blatant sign of my inability to deal effectively with all my STUFF.

Lorraine helped me get a work plan going for cleaning up the room. She was thoughtful and straightforward with me about it, there was absolutely no shame in showing her this shameful secret in our home. She took it like the professional that she is, and she showed me the light at the end of the tunnel. And the greatest thing of it all is that she gave me the structure and a great head start, but I did all the work myself. She sat with me twice and helped me sort, and the rest of the clean-up I did over an eight week period, fifteen minutes at a time.

This past weekend, I finished up the room. We had four runs to the Goodwill, three trips to Third Place Books to sell back my old books, then two trips to Half Price Books to sell back the stuff TPB wouldn't take, twenty bags of recycling, five bags of garbage, three boxes of things to sell on craigslist and a bag full of stuff to give to others as gifts. I estimate we flung over 250 pounds of stuff. Swell!

On Sunday, we officially renamed the FEMA Room. It is now called Her Meditation Room. And while it needs a bookshelf, some artwork and a comfy chair, it is now a blank canvas ready for my imaginings. I'm going to invite Lorraine back to help me envision the next step for this space. Who knows, the name may even change a few more times before it becomes what it is meant to be.

All I know is, I don't ever want to accumulate that much detritus. I don't need that much stuff in my life. I feel now as though a huge burden has been lifted from my shoulders. It's really an incredible feeling.