I once posted a Facebook status that said something to the effect of, "I know there are many things wrong in the world and my problems are little problems but they are mine and they seem big to me." My life is good and I know that. I am healthy, I have a job and a roof over my head, I have family that love me and a dog who doesn't like to be separated from me. Nothing to complain about, certainly not with the famine and disease and sickness and tragedies in the world. But, in the last year, there have been lots of little things and some medium sized things that have piled up to become a big thing, a weight that has pulled me down into a melancholy state of mind.
There has been a lot of change in my life in the last twelve months and it has been stressful. About a year ago, they began restructuring my department at work. I worked in the back office of a investment firm, running reports and balancing glorified check-books. It wasn't particularly stimulating but it was regular work and I kind of liked doing it.
But they were changing how my department was being run and outsourcing part of our work. There wouldn't be enough for four of us and, to use the words someone point-blank told me, I was the low person on the totem pole. I had the least seniority in our department. I went home after that meeting, terrified.
I spent a night wondering how I would survive? Would I have to move or maybe I could get a roommate to help with rent? I had some savings (for the first time in a long time) and I really didn't want to use that but I could. I didn't sleep well that night. The next morning, I talked with my supervisor and she allayed my concerns but did say I would likely be changing departments as the changes in operations went into affect. I felt better but still rattled. I was later offered a position in the marketing and sales department. I still work for the same company but doing something completely different. Even my LinkedIn profile recognizes that, for all intents and purposes, I switched jobs completely.
The official change in my job occurred about seven months ago, right after I performed a full-length vocal recital and right before I began costuming an opera. I had to complete my final operations quarter (running quarterly reports for all of our clients) while helping with my first client events in marketing and planning/rehearsing for my first full length recital in ten years. I was stressed. As a result, I procrastinated working on the costumes for the opera, thinking I'd just wait until everything died down a little.
To shorten this post a bit, things didn't die down until after the opera. In the meantime, I pulled what I hope to be the very last all-nighter I ever do, costumed an opera, and my house slowly became more and more cluttered as bits of fabric got left here and there. I went incommunicado with my family. Dishes piled up, and I started to eat almost exclusively at Starbucks. I wasn't sleeping well. It wasn't real pretty.
Easter came and went, the opera ended, and at work, I was starting to feel a little bit of a rhythm form. I was still training but things were slowly starting to get clearer. I thought my life would get back to order then but the damage had been done. My apartment was a horrible mess and every night, I came home, looked at it in despair and slumped on my couch to watch Netflix. Weekends were spent with grand ideas of cleaning and organizing, only to slip past with no change in my environment. This went on for about a month and a half. I still wasn't really cooking and I had some gnarly science experiments in the lab I call a refrigerator.
The first glimpse of some daylight was a knit night. I had offered to host, knowing that I would have to do some tidying. In this case, it meant everything got stuffed into bags and then stuffed into the guest room. Not really what needed to happen but it was a step. At least I could see the living room floor.
The second glimpse was my mom coming to visit. She's staying with me right now, in the guest room that a week ago, you couldn't walk into it (you could barely open the door). I'm not proud to admit this. In fact, I'm incredibly embarrassed that I let things get that bad but I want to be completely honest. Because admitting you have a problem is the first step, right?
You see, I'm a crafting packrat. When I say I don't want to toss something because I might be able to use it, more often than not, a month or year later, I will actually find a use for that item. But it has gone beyond the helpful stage to the mildly unhealthy stage. To clean quickly for my mom's visit, I had to toss. And it felt good. Today was trash day and I couldn't wait for the trash to be picked up so I could fill the can again with more stuff. Because I don't want to be weighed down by my things anymore. I don't want to lose myself in an apartment I don't enjoy because it's messy and cluttered. I want to be able to truly relax and enjoy life.
This may be sound overly simple but, sometimes, to live a more full life, you just have to take out the trash.
