Making Room for Growth

Between Christmas and New Year’s, I had most of the week off from work. In that time, I had grand hopes of completely decluttering our study. Due to my husband working in the IT field, the study has become overrun with an abundance of spare computer parts, 3D printer filament and projects, and miscellaneous other items. While my mess in the study had a smaller footprint, the entire room was in overwhelming disarray.

I like things to be organized. As the saying goes, “A place for everything and everything in its place.” I had to start somewhere and decided to tackle the closet first. It’s wasn’t horrible, but not wanting to do anything halfway, I decided to go through everything and reorganize it. All the gift wrapping supplies were placed in their own dedicated organizer box that now slides beneath the guest bed. I went through all of my craft, sewing, and office supplies and organized them neatly in stackable drawer organizer contraptions. I even sorted through all of the accumulated mail and was finally able to get rid of most of it! 

Thinking ahead of how much I needed some extra space on my bookshelves (a constant battle for someone who practices tsonduku[1]), what I did next was perhaps the hardest part so far of the decluttering process. I decided to finally pack up and put in storage bins my cop stuff that has been sitting on the bookshelves and study floor—bulging binders from my academy days, in-service classes, and miscellaneous odds and ends. I cried. It felt like I was boxing up an era of my life. But in order to make room for growth, it required me to file away part of my past in an appropriate way. By making that hard decision, I was able to clear out an entire shelf and a half on my bookcases, opening up space to place more books once I’ve read them.

The study is far from finished. It’s still a work in progress, just like all of us. The more into the decluttering process I got, the more I realized how big of a project it was going to be. Reflecting back on 2020, and on the changes and work I had done to “declutter” emotionally and spiritually, I realized it was okay for me to slow down and tackle the study one step at a time. The “old” me would have pressured myself to rush and try to get everything done on too short of a timetable. The “new” me decided it was better to do it at a slower pace.

As hard and messy as life can get, I am so grateful for the work I did to change and grow this past year. If we take even just that one small step forward, and then the next, change can happen. By making room for the change, we make room to grow.

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[1] Tsonduku: the practice of buying more books than you can read. Check out this great article on why you DON’T want to throw out your books!

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