Letting go...

I'm in a complicated stretch of my life right now. My young son, who's newest favorite thing is to shove parts of his body against parts of mine, is arriving in about three months. This is good. I've gotten through the first two trimesters. But this is bad...i'm a procrastinator and I have a ton to do like I said last time and its a bit overwhelming. At least i'm not doing it alone though. That makes life easier.

The biggest thing, out of everything we have to accomplish, besides getting our car fixed (which we are almost there with, yay!), is clearing out four rooms of this house in three months. It used to be five rooms, but in a pure moment of manic nesting syndrome, I dragged my family out to the garage and we cleaned it! Well, most of it. We easily got rid of TWO TRUCKLOADS of crap to the dump and about a truckload and a half of stuff to Goodwill that had been sitting in our garage for the last 22 years or so. We've lived here a long time, since right before D.R was born. Time has not been our friend in terms of accumulation and we are all bad for it. We found old toys (like my Alvin and the Chipmunks doll I got for Christmas 1984 with the pull string on the back that I pulled so much, his voice doesn't work anymore, we chucked him), D.R's stories he wrote back in school (with his overactive imagination, I can't for the life of me figure out why he doesn't try writing...or becoming a lawyer...i still need to have a dictionary beside me to have a conversation with him sometimes), things my mom had meant to send out to her family in South America and about 3 bazillion tool boxes that my dad has. Anyways, we cleaned it. It was weird. It was the most room any of us had seen out there in about 10 years. And, it left us with enough room to shove a queen size bed, a desk and a trunk out there from my room.

Yep, we cleaned my room. Well, we cleared out stuff, how about we say that. My queen size bed was replaced with a California king size bed, that i'm really surprised we fit into my room at all. The mattress is only two years old though, and very comfy. I'm sleeping much better. My desk is gone, which sucks, because I have nowhere to put bills and stuff, but its making me get rid of shit, which is good. I still have a lot of crap that I have to figure out what to do with. I'm getting rid of most of the evening gowns I have, except for two (one for a trash the dress photo shoot and one that I just like and should still fit me once I have the jellybean), I need to organize and pack away my CD collection and then start going through and converting my DVD collection to blu-ray. Plus going through my clothes. Which is gonna be weird, considering I've decided to give MOST of it away that I was wearing pre-pregnancy and start over again when I have the baby. I still have a long way to go, and i'm not sure if I'm going to be done by the time the baby comes. But there are still three other rooms of this house to clean.

Next, is the dining room, which is about 15 years worth of crap from soccer balls to camping equipment, to board games and books. Its gonna take some time, but its a smaller room compared to the garage, so I think it'll work out faster in the end. Then, we gotta clear out the living room, which has pretty much become baby storage stuff. Then, D.R.'s room, who has graciously agreed to move into the living room so that the baby can have his room. Basically, all the cleaning is a method of madness of sorts. And this is boring, I know. But the mess has consumed my life. Its like being underwater, and just wanting to burst up to the surface for air. Its left me consumed in memories when I stumble upon things.

In a real shocker, I've actually gotten rid of photographs. As an amateur photographer, this is so not my style. But, I find in my current emotional state, I'm almost allowing myself to feel emotions other than happiness, and while some of the photos stay because they make me happy, other have to go in the trash because they make me angry. I think its what I knew all along. I clean up my home, maybe i'll clean up the rest of my life. Get rid of other things that make me angry. Learn to continue to be happy with the person I am. I may not have a title, a million dollar paycheck or even a clean room. But I have a family who loves me, a man who cherishes me, faults and all, with no judgement for my past and an adorable little man coming into my life. So, why do I keep holding on the past, besides wanting to remember the good times? Isn't it time to let go of the sadness, the anger? To stop punishing myself for whatever things I did against others that I've already apologized for. To stop allowing myself to feel inferior because I don't have this, that or the other, or don't do things a certain way. I've digressed completely, but I was trying to get here. Its where I've been for months, maybe years. And, its hard to get out of the cycle once you're in it. Once you allow others to allow you to feel inferior, its hard to escape. Its such an easy mold to fit. I'm not this because I don't have that, and I'm not that because I don't do this and I don't love so and so because I do this instead of that. Screw it all. Holding on to photographs that make me upset, doesn't make me a better person. Trying to hold on to things that don't bring back good memories doesn't make me happy. If I'm really going to try to start anew per say, isn't it time to just let it all go?