Monthly Musing – January 2021 – Clearing out

“Flipping heck, I’d forgotten all about that!”

I’ve been tidying up in my little study room today.  It’s not a very big space and I’ve got four bookcases, a desk and a drawer unit crammed into it, not to mention two hampers full of yarn and some boxes tucked under my desk.  Oh, and there are two doors in here as it’s the room that everyone passes on the way to the loo so my wall space is limited!

Not being the world’s tidiest person doesn’t help when you’ve got a room that you could just about swing a cat in if it was quite a small cat (this is a figure of speech, I don’t actually do this!), and I am further hampered by the fact that my desk seems to have a large sign over it that says “drop everything that is in the wrong place in the house here”.

Now, I know what you’re thinking.  If my room was beautifully tidy and my desk always clear then nobody would dare to drop their junk on it, but sadly, it’s not often that that is the case.  I am one of the Messy Creative variety of people, although sometimes it all gets a bit messy even for me!

Today, though – today, I’ve been Clearing Out.  I’m on a bit of a clearing out roll at the moment; I’ve been working my way around the house and garden (it’s been part of my Winter Haven KAL self-care!), and whilst my Clearing Out mode seems to be firing on all cylinders for once, I’m making the most of it!

I’ve parcelled up some things that needed to be returned to online shops.  I’ve thrown away little pieces of scrap paper that I obviously thought needed to be kept for some reason.  I’ve packed my sample socks in a large box so that they’re all together (I know, you’d think I’d have done that sooner but I hadn’t quite got around to it).  I’ve found half-knitted socks, the spare shed key, a wool needle I thought I’d lost and some packets of sweeties that were buried under some pens.  Result!

Already I can feel the energy changing in here; it’s a bit like when you move sticks in a dammed stream and let the water run through.  It happens every time I do some de-cluttering and I love the feeling so I have no idea why I don’t do it more often, although to be fair to myself, often it’s less about sparking joy and more about putting things to one side because I need to think about what I’m doing with them before I let them go – it’s not unheard of for me to fish things back out of the bin an hour after they’ve gone in!

I’m not planning to stop clearing out just because January is over and the Winter Haven KAL has come to an end.  Something has shifted in my psyche, like one season turning into another, and I’m ready to make space for new energy and Creative Thoughts.  It won’t be easy – ingrained messy habits are no easier to break than any other – but we need to consider our self-care more than ever at the moment and if tidying my desk means that the junk stops being dropped there and I don’t have to tidy that up as well, then that’s as much self-care for me as painting my toenails or reading a book.

And you never know, there just might more sweeties buried somewhere so that sounds like a good incentive to me!

Progress!