Cleaning Closets

I have an aversion to cleaning.  I can’t explain why, because I always feel so relieved and joyful anytime I finish a cleaning project.  Perhaps it comes from a childhood of a mother obsessed with clean; to a point way beyond any definition of normal.  Anytime I would clean my room, dishes, the bathroom, or any other project she assigned me to, she would come inspect my work.  It never passed her standards, regardless of how much time and elbow grease I sweated over.  It got to a point where I said to hell with it, I guess.  It’s getting better as I grow into my adult years, now that I have children I want to set an example for.  We have a very clean home; I just don’t like doing it.

I always hear how closet cleaning is therapeutic, and good for the soul.  Anytime a friend makes a statement about it, or when I read it in a book, I get a discouraged look on my face and think, “Ugh, what a chore!”  But that tiny little voice in my head is agreeing with them.

This morning I took my cup of coffee up to my bedroom, and walked into my closet to get dressed.  I stood there, frozen in my own footsteps, with a voice saying, “You need to purge and clean, girlfriend.”   A smile formed on my lips, and I got that fluttering feeling in my chest that I get when I know something satisfying and meaningful is about to happen.  I couldn’t wait to dig in, but had children to get ready and ushered to school.   I kept the family on task and started driving my youngest to school.  That’s when I heard it, my critic.  “You don’t want to clean your closets today!  It’s way too much work.  You can do it some other time.”  I recognized those voices as that little girl inside that didn’t want to clean, because it wasn’t going to be good enough anyway.  My spiritual voice stepped in, comforted my inner child for a moment, and reassured the need to clean out my closet.

I returned home and was eager to begin my project.  I started clearing shelves, and remembered the spiritual thoughts that I had drifted asleep to last night, and realized that cleaning out my closet came at the time I needed it most.

I lay in bed last night, overwhelmed with emotions and discouraged at my lack of creative drive I have been experiencing the past few weeks.  I opened myself up and asked for guidance from the higher power that I believe in.  (Most of us refer to this as the Universe, God, Heavenly Father, Mother Earth, Buddha, etc.)  I asked for guidance, peace, creativity, joy.  I prayed for the ability to be the best mother to my two daughters that I can be to allow them to find their own strength and creativity.  I said thanks for the resilience of my marriage and the power of the love that my husband and I have spent years challenging; trying to prove it wrong but finding it always wins out in the end.  I asked for the Universal voice to be heard through my writing.  And I asked for the understanding that wherever I am is exactly where I am supposed to be.

I spent three hours cleaning out my closets this morning.  I threw out things that had managed to find their ways into the deep crevices, behind shoes and our dresser.  Receipts, halves of earring sets, an old matchbox; you get the idea.  I started on one side and worked my way around to the other, clearing shelves and hangers; starting a pile of things that will soon be donated to local shelters and such.

Getting rid of so many clothes and shoes put a smile on my face and in my soul.  I knew all of these things that I no longer wanted; that had found themselves taking up space in my closet for who knows how long; would be going to someone else that desperately needed them.  Dresses that may find themselves sitting in a job interview; hoping for that income to provide for a single mother and her children.  Shoes that will replace ones with holes or worn out soles.  Jewelry that might make someone feel pretty again.

Cleaning closets is indeed, good for the soul.  Laboring over this project for three hours, with nobody’s voice to listen to but my own and gathering piles of extra ‘stuff’ that no longer suited me  made me so happy.  I looked over my closet triumphantly after hauling bags and bags of stuff out to be donated.  My closet was a clean, open space again; and so was my mind.