When I happily deck my halls with Christmas decorations, I put away the things that normally stand in their places. It’s like the regular house goes on pause for a few weeks. In January, I am usually equally happy to swap things out again, but this year, I was not.
Some things were OK, but others just seemed to sit there like tired old lumps. Or maybe it was me. I was tired of looking at them. The bookends on the entry table, the vase down below, the little grouping of Henry David Thoreau books on the piano – not a thing wrong with them, but none of them reclaimed their original places. In a bold move, I boxed up everything I was tired of looking at and put it in Goodwill limbo in the garage.
It was like a breath of fresh air for the first 30 seconds, and then I looked at those empty spaces and realized that I would like to have something sitting there. I didn’t know exactly what, just not what was there before.
I had a similar experience with my closet. (I’m sensing a theme here) There were shirts that were perfectly serviceable, ones I had worn on many occasions, but I decided that thenceforth I wanted them to service someone else.
I didn’t make any no-turning-back moves to the dumpster, mind you. I just declared a trial separation.
Not so with my refrigerator. I am one of those people who dutifully tries to “eat up” whatever is in the frig, even on days when every fiber in my body would like something fresh and new. On a decorating/closet high, I fearlessly culled both my refrigerator and pantry. The bottle of duck sauce had not reached expiration status, but every time I looked at it, it seemed to be berating me for my culinary cowardice, so into the bin it went. The refrigerator was full of usable dabs of this and that, but I boldly threw them all away. I had to close the trash can quickly because that was a rough one.
You think I’d be positively giddy, but I didn’t feel good about my purge. It smacked of ingratitude, but I reasoned that buying a box of fun rotini instead of my regular elbow pasta was a gift I might reasonably give myself.
I asked my son-in-law to uproot the spindly evergreens that had been living a tortured existence on my front porch for many years. In their place, he put some colorful full sun flowers, and it’s given my front porch a whole new lease on life.
I had rid the rest of the outdoor pots of last year’s flowers months ago. Now, if we can ever be rid of this unseasonable (unreasonable) cold, I can go to the garden center and pick out something new and different, or maybe the same as last year, just a new same.
Back to my empty entryway. … I bought a fake plant to serve as a place holder. It won’t be permanent, but it will do for now. I added a few books to the shelf below that I had actually read as opposed to the show-off ones I had in place before. That felt good. And dear old Thoreau came back intact. I found I missed just having the guy around.
I hope my Not That snit is over, but the elections are coming up so I’m not making any promises. Every once in a while, it is good to be ready to move on even if you don’t know exactly where you’re going.
