As I sit in my home office at six a.m. on a Sunday morning, doing my part on a biannual technology exercise, I looked around the room and said, “This place is a mess!” It’s not that I haven’t been conscious of the mess, but as it happens, life and all its sucky parts got in the way of organized chaos over the past year. My diagnosis, Aiden’s brain tumor, losing Jude, and various natural disasters that wreaked havoc at home and on the day job, well, some things just go to the back burner.
Couple that with explosive growth of the antique and artisan business and dabbling in lots of other things, I honestly deprioritized anal-retentive organization. With my blinders on, I totally missed the piles of papers, and the overflow of pens, markers, and other interesting Cricut tools and utensils started to double as paperweights to keep the paper piles from hitting the floor.
Something (horrifying) magical occurs when you have computer screen windshield time that has you half-listening to call-outs and checklists complete. Your surroundings become a most interesting (alarming) new focal point for action. I then realized, if I am ever going to move to Fort Worth, I need to start culling down all the things to reduce the volume of stuff that gets moved.
This revelation, also fueled by a recent visit to my future city, motivated me toward change. Historically, I was an organized, everything-in-its-place and a-space-for-everything kinda gal. However, as part of my neurodiversity (ND) therapy, I needed to learn how to let things go and give myself a break, resting and pivoting to priorities rather than trying to do all the things at the same time. (Houdini, I am not. Disappointed reality.)
That’s a hard shift for me. Trying to reduce the number of things that get my attention and downgrading the things that aren’t in the immediate bucket of suck is a challenge, and not the kind I like. I rather enjoy making a game out of each day, trying to fit as much productivity into it as possible. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy a good binge day like anyone else; sitting on the couch watching my movie and series queue is a welcome reprieve from stimulating action. But even that is gamified: how many can I watch today? Can I get through the entire seven seasons over the weekend? It’s an unhealthy level of (internalized) competition. Nevertheless, the ND wiring doesn’t understand that, so I must build in safety nets (manual workarounds) to prevent going off the proverbial cliff. One of those coping strategies is letting the little things go. Nobody cares about my paper piles or the husky hair dust bunnies in the corner of the room when dropping by to see me.
The sunrise is cresting over the rooftops, behind the trees, and at any moment, the sunlight will shine through my office window, creating a dancehall prism for the dust particles circling in the room. I gaze in wonderment that humanity is so focused on progress and progression while nature continues to do what she’s always done; on rinse and repeat, day becomes night, again and again. Maybe we’ve got it all wrong. Perhaps there is not more to life but less, doing meaningful things and delaying, or forgetting, any of the rest.
What really matters is my health, well-being, and the state of my connections to friends, those I call family, and my four-legged earth angels. We never know how long any of them will be in our lives, and when it comes down to choosing between spending time with those I love and shuffling some pens and papers back into formation, I think I have my priorities in proper order. Truly, for once, my life is full and fully blessed.