I went shopping today and spent the rest of mine and my husband’s christmas money (in the form of gift cards) on cleaning supplies – things that I wish I’d had when in the past couple of weeks I actually felt the urge to clean.
It’s been a while since I’ve actually had the energy and the supplies I needed at the same time. I spent quite a bit more than I expected and probably bought a few items that I would call “luxury” as far as cleaning goes. But, I already put some of them to use tonight. I made a dent. A smallish dent, but a dent nonetheless.
For the past several years my health has been up for a little while and down quite a bit. Right after I moved in to my husband’s house, I fell ill and was in the hospital 13 or so times in our first year together (dating and marraige- we got married nine months after we started dating.) Well, I was in no shape to unpack all my many, many things. Nor was I in shape to clean.
I’m very lucky to have friends like I do. One of them came over several times to clean and organize for me, even paying other people to help her (in that way she helped them and me) – the job at hand was not something that could be accomplished in one day, but they made a noticeable difference.
Then when my health first turned around for the better, I focused on working, not cleaning. Then after, hmm, a year or maybe a year and some months – bammo! My health took a downward turn again.
My dear, sweet, understanding husband has put up with a lot. The mess is so much more stressful for him than it is for me. I was used to blocking it out, since I had bouts like this when I lived on my own for years and just got used to the fact that cleaning was not a priority when I was so low on energy.
Well, I have resolved this year to get serious about letting go of much of the stuff I’ve been holding onto. This is another area of my life that requires me to trust and have faith that if and when I need these things, they will be made available to me, so I don’t need to horde every thing I may someday have a use for.
As with all my resolutions or goals, I’ve given myself a year before I decide the real progress I’ve made. This is not to say that I’m waiting a year to begin accomplishing all these things, but with almost all of them, there is the aspect of maintenence. So it is not just for me to do a massive overhaul of our current situation, but also to create new good habits of keeping up with the progress I’ve made, since that is the real measure of whether I’ve taken these new lifestyle elements to heart.
I want to continue tomorrow to make a considerable dent in this goal, but if I’m too tired, I will do what I can – committing to 15 minutes, if nothing else, and then going from there. I’ve thought of making myself a star sticker board on a poster like the ones our teachers used when we were in elementary school. Visuals really do help – to be able to see the progress made which can be hard when you look around and still don’t see what you want things to look like – it’s helpful to be reminded of wher I started.
So, I’ve made a big step tonight and I’m proud of myself.
