Clutter Clearing.

Clutter clearing is something I have worked on, on & off, since 2005, when I read Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui. I have seen some incredible results in my life. I owe my job at Gorham Printing to my first clutter clearing session. We used to live with James on Milroy Street. There was a sunroom and my table was in there. I have this vague memory of it being completely covered in about a foot of stuff. I didn't know what was in that pile then, and I don't now. But I know I got rid of it, went on a roadtrip, came home and interviewed and got the hell out of food service. The following summer we had a garage sale, where we sold very little, and then carted 7 car loads of, again, I don't know what, to Goodwill.

When we moved to Bellingham, we put out piles of stuff on the curb for months. It all got taken away by people who walked or drove by! Putting out a free box is one of the big thrills in life, I think.

This past March, I got the book Clutter Busting. I always say the same thing about this book: the stories are mega-corny, but, for whatever reason, it lit a fire under my ass. Over a few weeks I went through just about everything in our apartment in Bellingham. I truly feel that it was one of the best periods of my life; I felt so invigorated. Kaden worried that I was freakin out, and also felt like I was neglecting our personal relationship, which surprised the hell out of me, because I felt so good I assumed he could see and feel it.

The concept of clutter clearing, for me & for many, is that letting go makes room for something better in your life.

I went through my file cabinet. My files are kinda precious to me. They are funny. I read so much of my old writing and I loved it. I got rid of every thing in my "High School" folder except my SAT scores. I had one unlabeled file - it would have been labeled with (and was in alphabetical order according to) the name of my ex-girlfriend from when I was 17. It was unlabeled because I didn't want it to seem creepy if Kaden ever happened to look in my file cabinet. Our relationship had ended very poorly and we had not really had contact in 9 years. Yet I had every card & letter she'd written me, drawings she had done, a copy of her resume, photos of us together, and dirty photos of us together. It took me a lot of thought and consideration, journal writing and even coaching from my BFF Cree to decide what to do with the contents of the folder. I finally recycled everything, tearing the nude photos into shreds for legal (not emotional) reasons. I held onto this cool drawing she did of The Need for a couple extra days, but finally let that go too.

Then we found out The Need were playing a reunion show. Just a couple days before the show, my ex-girlfriend added me to her facebook friends. We messaged back & forth & everything was cool! We hung out at the show! I was very pleased, also, to find myself completely NOT attracted to her, but enjoying her company. I let go of some pieces of paper and it healed that spot of confusion & regret that I had harbored so long.

Remarkable.