Gentle Pushes

my dear friend Corine...my friend whose writing makes me laugh and sigh and opens a door to the soul- you feel like you KNOW her when you read her posts. And I am blessed to actually KNOW her, to know the real person and know the she is as spendid as the writing would entice you to believe. She is a gift.

I ran into Corine today. We had a brief discussion on the walk up to the school to pickup kids, and it was a fun moment laughing about the HOARDERS show on A&E. She had just blogged about it. I had just watched an episode my husband recorded this weekend (strategically left in the recorder in hopes of motivating me). It was the first time I had seen it. I sat up watching past midnight while everyone else slept...horrified, not by the people, but by the similarities I shared with them. My heart was pounding in an uncomfortable way, exposed, uncertain, shaky. Yes, I can walk through my rooms. Yes, most of my house is pretty normal and streamlined. But my office...well, it is my territory of cluttered, saved, stored, smooshed, piled and lost items. And a lot of other hidden spaces are as well, including the coat closet, my clothes closet, the laundry room, the pantry, the linen cupboard...ANY cupboard. The show ended and I got up. 1am.  While everyone else slept I cleaned out the space under the bathroom sink, wishing instead I had a dump truck outside and could start on my office, knowing I needed to go back to sleep so I could tackle more with the early morning light. 

And tackle more I did. 8 bags of recycling later and finally finishing some badly needed paperwork. My friend Susan came over and helped me go through some piles and a milk crate of papers that I have been carting around for over a year. It was uncomfortable to have someone else go through MY stuff. She commented that I started working faster because of the panic at having someone else do it. Yes. Sometimes a kick in the butt is what we need. A flame to the fire. Getting out of our comfort zone.

The clean-up is still in progress but it is so incredibly motivating. I believe you do need to make room for the new. If your space is too full, then you don't have breathing space to let the new wonderful prospects come to you. Every time I declutter I find money, gift cards, unexpected surprises and treasures. And wonderful things happen...the call about a new project, a submission gets excepted, something good comes to fruition. The space makes new things bloom. It's like I am asleep under a warm and heavy wool blanket and when I throw the covers off I find Spring has come and it's glorious.

So back to Corine and today. We talked about how the Universe can give you that push to move you forward when you can not do it for yourself. It comes in uncomfortable ways like losing the job that was crushing your soul so you can move into work that makes your heart sing. Disappointment from a friend so you become stronger on your own. And even having a hard drive crash so you don't waste time in the past but work with what is new and fresh in your mind. Ouch. It all hurts. But there is a valuable push in there somewhere. It is part of releasing the clutter, clearing the space and more importantly, clearing the mind.

Ah, and now I must listen to my own words. No, my hard drive did not crash, thank goodness and knock on wood. But I have felt the push. As I visited Corine's site, I saw the images of my fabrics, ready for the world to see. 

And my heart about stopped.

 

Yes, they are out in stores and I am proud of them. But I have been waiting for the time to show them more, to send them to other blogs, when I have sample items made to REALLY show the fabrics more.  Waiting for...waiting for what? Why not now? Corine, you have given me a needed push I had not given myself. Show it more to the world. Get out of my comfort zone. So I am going to try to live according to my own advice (ouch again!) and be living what is new and fresh in my mind and not hoarding my gifts to share and stalling in my "someday" cluttered talk in my head. 

Thank you my dear friend for my needed push.

Hugs...