GARAGE TRANSFORMED

Last post was a good old fashioned 'BEFORE' picture.

You can review it here: Insights from a Garage

I opened up all the dirty laundry that was hanging out in this 

little bitty shack behind our house.

Then I gloated a little bit about how trans-formative a change it has been.

This post is all about the 'AFTER'.

Who doesn't love a good before and after?

You've seen the mess:

BEFORE

And so you might be expecting to see a complete and utter re-do-

where everything is different.

Where the life that existed 'before' is completely over-hauled and off-set by several thousand dollars of purchases or plastic surgery or weeks of intensive exercise. 

Isn't that what a good makeover show will do?

Allow you to get rid of your life and replace it with someone else's?

AMIRIGHT?
I don't think so.

The big reveal.....AFTER!

At least...that's not what you'll see here.

We didn't buy new furniture or remake our lives with more stuff in this transformation.

We didn't become butterflies from caterpillars.

We are already enough-we don't need to be someone 
completely different or inhabit a whole new land of stuff to prove that.

There were a few trips to Lowe's Home Improvement 
but we had almost all the containers that we needed.

Sit with that for a sec...under all that pile of dysfunction

WE HAD WHAT WE NEEDED ALL ALONG.

It was already there, 
waiting to be uncovered or put into it's actual, right place.

Am I totally on drugs to think that this is such a good metaphor for living a whole life?

The last time we had a live Christmas tree was B.C. (Before Children)

The first day of the garage weekend cleanout weekend, we pulled everything out of the garage.

We split it into 3 piles:  trash, sell, and keep.

Our current yard is a tenth of an acre.  Approx. a tenth of that is grass.  

The trash pile was easy to agree on.

The pile to sell or get rid of in a different way was harder.

That required quite a bit of negotiation.

We owned a lot of stuff.

Some of it was valuable-but only valuable to someone else.

Motorcycle helmet? No longer needed.

Rock climbing gear? Haven't used in 16 years.

Cool strings of lights with hearts on them ? Still in the package.

We had to assign a value to the item and then try and sell it.

Some of it did not sell.

This stuff was heavy.

It needed to go.

There was real risk of it settling back into some new nook or cranny
 if we didn't have a plan.

We agreed on a timeline...
the stuff that didn't sell was donated to our church's youth group
 who was having a yard sale.

We have a lot of need to strap things down and hang things up.....

Now onto the stuff that we decided to keep.

We agreed that it is useful and necessary.

But....there was a lot of it.

How do we put that back in so that we can actually use it?

How can we help this space work for us 
instead of maneuvering around things constantly.

Everything has a place

This took most of the second day.

And some fiddling.

But the things we need and use most often (bikes, tools)

are handy.

The things that we only use occasionally 
(golf clubs, camping gear) 
are stored away.

No more random piles of screws, nails, bolts, hooks.  They live in this handy containers.

We grouped like with like.

So...all the tools are with similar tools 
(hammers together, screw drivers, ratchets).

Also, tools for similar projects are together-
painting supplies are in one area, 
electrical work in another.

Fuses and cables and cord-OH MY!

And labels are on many things.  
Labels to remind us where things go so we don't have to try 
and hold the pattern in our tired brains. 
Labels to remind us what we have 
and what we don't.
Labels so that we can understand the system and continue it. 

Calling a thing what it is, keeps it in it's place.

Our garage is useful now.  It's not just a thing that we have to carry around or fill up with stuff.  I keep wondering..how did I get this life that is so beautiful?  And also...how much more beautiful this life is when I prepare for the beauty.

Chairs for soccer and room for a little bit of beauty

INSIGHTS FROM A GARAGE

Can you tell what's behind this door?

Because I've been talking about a lot of emotional stuff....
I just want to pause and talk about real life.
Specifically the tactical, tangible changes that are happening in my life 
as I learn to live and breath into myself.
The innate super-powers that become enabled when I have clarity on self-care.

It's possible that I am just gloating and obnoxious about this whole subject. 
Warning....I'm going to talk about it anyway.

Turns out....getting clear on your priorities allows you to do magic.

Let me give you a for-instance.
When you are clear on your priorities,

you can actually schedule a whole weekend of time....

to clean out your garage.

I know-it doesn't sound that sexy or magical.

But it is the DIY equivalent of losing 20 pounds.

It is breathing and air.

It is taking care of myself and my life.
It is about damn time.

The before shot.  I was afraid to get too close.

We have lived in our current house for 11 years.

It's a lovely house that is exactly the right size

for 4 humans who are reasonable editors of their stuff.

There is a picture of my garage at the top of this post.
So cute right?
It is not actually big enough for one of our modern SUVs to park in

but it is big enough to store our tools, bikes, and assorted accessories.

Or at least it should be.

Some bikes we use.  Some bikes we don't.  KEEP THEM ALL was our motto.

We are not
in fact
good editors of our stuff.
We have been piling crap that doesn't work in our lives in this garage
 for a solid 10 years and 11 months.

There are so many things in this garage that are useful and needed.

Things we use daily or weekly.

Tools that are expensive and should be cared for.

Toys that are beloved and provide joy to each of us.

You just have to wade through all the crap to get to it.

No one in my house has played golf or racquetball in at least 3 years.

This garage is a useful metaphor for my life.

I have a couple of lines of thought that justify continuing to keep stuff around.
Line of thought #1 is based in a myth of scarcity, a fear of missing out or just plain anxiety.  

It goes something like this:

I might need this one day....so how about I just keep it.
Just in case.

 I definitely cannot let this item go.

It is valuable and useful.

To someone.

Possibly to me....

Although I haven't used it in years.
Maybe not ever.
It is important! 
I don't remember why....so I'll just keep it.
Just in case.

Can you see that desk chair?  Neither could we.

Line of thought #2 is based in a lack of responsibility or failure to take ownership.  
It goes something like this:

This doesn't actually work anymore but will require me to change my routine
in order to get rid of it.

It's too exhausting to get rid of it-
it's too heavy, too cumbersome, too toxic-
so I'll put it here until I feel capable or interested 
in taking care of this problem.
And....
I don't want to make time to take it to the place 
where it needs to go (i.e.-the dump) 
so I will just put it in the very back and start stacking things on it.

I'll never need to look at that broken thing again

if I can pile more useful, prettier things on top of it.
Hopefully it will disappear into the landscape of my life.

Exactly how many half used containers of cleaner do we need?

Can you see how this is JUST LIKE LIFE?
There was a long time where all aspects of my life
were the equivalent of this garage.
Outside, with the walls and masks up-
everything looks ok.
Open that door up and start looking around and
I promise you'd be shocked.
Apparently, all aspects of your life are all connected
even if you're refusing to believe it.
Having trouble with your work relationships?
You're probably experiencing those similar themes in EVERY relationship.
Hustling for your worth with a parent?
Probably hustling for your worth in every venue.
Trying to measure up?
The measuring stick is ever-present, even when you refuse to see it.


My soul work is to let the outside match the inside
EVEN IF THE INSIDE ISN'T THAT PRETTY.
Let what it is
be what it is.
Stop spending energy trying to pretend or hide.
Accept reality.
Once you accept it, you can begin to change it.

Back to the garage...

All the pictures in this post are taken on the first day of our two day garage clean out.

They are the literal piles of junk that we took out of that little tiny space.
Our tiny yard could barely hold all the stuff that was crammed into this garage.

The goal for the first day was to take it all out, 
put it in the light of day,
SEE IT.
 Mission was accomplished.

Next post will show the fruits of our labor.

Here's a little foreshadowing...we bought a label maker.

FREEDOM FROM STRENGTH

Artwork created by my daughter 

Once upon a time...

there was a little girl who was smart and beautiful and silly and erratic and lazy and weak.

She was lots of things (as we all are) but....

the trait that defined her within her family was strength.

Again and again she was praised for being strong.

So that is what she came to understand about herself.

She was strong.

She could do it.

All of it.

For everyone.

The little girl learned to be what other people told her she was-

she got really good at wearing that mask.

The one where she was strong

and her other gifts were shadow traits.

Strong is the new pretty right?

My sweet girl many years ago....

As the little girl grew up the mask grew with her...sort of.

It was really tight and only stayed on if she held herself still.

No rocking of the boat and she could still fit that narrow label.
Strong.
No weakening of the resolve or expansion of the heart and she remained.
Strong.

Strong began to feel pretty constricting.

Like being wrapped in a vise by a large, lethal snake.

She couldn't breathe.

Like whole parts of her had to be suppressed or annihilated in order to fit.

Tools were sometimes necessary to remain in this place...

tools like denial and lots of words that end in -ism.

Workaholism.

Asceticism.

Egotism.

Perfectionism.

Escapism.

Formalism.

Maybe even alcoholism.

An early representation of my masks....

The formerly little girl began to wonder...

does everyone else have to live like this?

Or is it just me?

Am I the only one who has to stay within a mask?

What would happen if I stopped, took it off, stepped outside?

What would my label be then?

She thought about these things for a few years.

While she did, the mask started to fracture and slip.

People around her started to question her actions

-she wasn't always doing the things that were expected of the strong.

She was wearing the mask so she was the one assigned 

to do the heavy-lifting.

Be strong.

Fix us.

Keep it together.

She tried.

Really hard.

With all the strength she had, she tried hard to maintain that mask.

It was her defining characteristic after all...the one that mattered.

Without that mask, who would she be?

Poetry by Nayyirah Waheed.  Incredible Woman.

And then...the mask broke.

More like....It shattered.
Ok...it didn't break so much as she destroyed it.

One day she threw it against the wall in a fit of anguish and gut-wrenching rage.

Then stomped it into little bits on the floor and swept them away in the wind of her screams.

Turns out...strong can't contain everything.

The woman born that day slowly began to realize that while she is strong

it is not nearly a large enough label to contain all that she is.

She is all things-and none of the things.

Art by me available periodically via my Etsy Store.

That one-time girl has resolved to never be in jail again-

even a jail of soft comfort.

She is still able to hold the line 

frame the resolution

protect the weak

comfort the weary.

Those are definitely gifts of strength.

She is also able to

 dance like a dervish

laugh until she snorts

be almost inconsolable in heart-break

speak out in the face of injustice

refuse to meet expectations

and rest because she is tired.

That woman will not wear a mask so that others can be comfortable.

She has no interest in making anyone else wear them either.

That includes all areas of her life but especially within safe spaces.

Family.

Marriage.

Church.

Job.

Country.

She will not be jailed

and she is not a jailer.

All of her is showing up-all the time.

Ready or not.

Art by me available periodically via my Etsy Store.