I have a similar theory about negativity as I do about guilt.
. There have been some sleepless nights, kids with tummy troubles combined with other added stressors, all layered onto of the fact that we’ve gone ahead and taken our home apart in order to swap our tv room and our art room…voluntarily swapping furniture, repairing drywall, changing mouldings, and painting, you know, in our spare time.
Anyone who knows me, knows that my love of order and my incapability of maintaining it are my largest struggles. I’m a woman on a mission of self-sabotage. I’ll organize any given room only to leave a stack of things to sort ‘later’, which of course never comes. “Why is there so much S&*! laying around! I’ll curse.”
I drive myself crazy.
I love to collect treasures for making projects, shiny rocks and shells from trips, fabrics from old clothing to repurpose, buttons and metal beads, small boxes and containers to sort and organize all of these beautiful bits into.
But clutter suffocates me. Ugh.
So you can imagine, how much I love having the entire contents of our Tv room in the main, open concept part of the house. It’s something that I can’t put into words, the heaviness it brings me. I suspect it’s partly because of how dark a room feels with too much furniture in it. I mean, I value some of the concepts of fengshui– I like my chi to flow, but it’s also just that life is trickier with three guitars in the main part of the house and a toddler who is delighted to find a hammer on the kitchen table at breakfast.
All in all, these are insignificant problems, and I’m aware of this. Last night I finally had a chance to unload all of this stuff, bouncing around in my brain, threatening to explode like fiery, hot lava. I felt a release, and a deep sense of gratitude for my husband’s unacknowledged suggestions.I was there, I heard them, likely shot them down, only to wake up this morning, feeling as though they were my own.
I put a plan into place and took action this morning.
The thing about negativity is that it spreads like wildfire. It’s as contagious as the flu. Anyone within listening distance is the next victim. With six people under one roof, that’s a hard cycle to break, so I reminded myself that these unhappy feelings have the power to push me forward, that I have to do something about them.
Sure, I could sit in my misery (pass me that tub of ice cream!), as I have now for several days, or I could put on my big girl pants, grab a ball peen hammer, laugh like a twelve year old when I learn its name, and begin working on the drywall.
So that’s exactly what I did.
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