Posted by Jenny Rae Armstrong in
Domestic Misadventures of a Distracted Miss
So, I did it. I cleared out my writing room, completely overhauled it. I meant to write about it earlier, how freeing the experience was, but I've been busy, too busy to do much blogging, and by the time I was slightly less busy, the Implications had hit me, knocked me into a mental and emotional tailspin. "Freeing" isn't all it's cracked up to be.It started innocently enough. I seized a quiet afternoon and began dragging the junk out of my writing room, doing some deep thinking. The room was symbolic of my internal state, I figured. Cluttered. Invaded. So full of other people's stuff that I could barely move, barely function, much less succeed. I nodded, clear-minded and determined, and cleared everyone else's stuff out.
Then I looked at what was left.
All that pretty, girly clutter I talked about looked different, when I thought of the room as an extension of myself. It was a shrine to childhood, a safe, insular cocoon padded with dolls, teddy bears, charm bracelets, even the Sesame Street blanket I had slept under as a toddler! How can a person move forward in a room like that??? How many people pursue successful careers with their blankies wrapped around their shoulders? It was clearly the room of someone terrified of moving forward, someone desperately seeking security in their past. It was the room of someone who would sabotage efforts at growth, who would abandon paths that led past the comfortable suppositions of their childhood.
I got a box. I packed up blankies, the dollies, the ceramic ballerinas and Holly Hobby mirrors that had graced my childhood, and put them in the storage closet. I relocated my teddy bear. (Okay, I know, but Honey Bear and I have been through a lot together, and he does NOT go in a box.:-D) I scrubbed everything down, set a vase of flowers and my laptop on the desk, and surveyed my work. I was triumphant. I was empowered. The runway was clear, and I was ready for take-off.
And now, I am terrified. Confused, uncertain, overwhelmed, and terrified.
*sigh*
But at least my room is clean. :-/
4 Response to Warning: Cleaning Your Room Can Kill You
Well done, Sweetface! Love this blog as I am procrastinating cleaning my house! Perhaps I will put it off a while longer...
Hey there JRA!
Thanks for bothering to comment on my stuff on theooze. Seems everyone wants to get some info about me. Am twice shy, as it were, but anyhow, checked out your blog site. You have a neat front page and some interesting thoughts! Are you an aspiring novelist, or what?
I've been dabbling in the written word since I was a kid, and always hoped to write novels. Got some poetry (with typos, regrettably) on www.christianpoets.com, which I helped to get moving during its inception, and have a couple of videos posted by friends on You Tube. Go under poets profile in the poetry site, and stick christian eskelund in in you tube, if you like. Will try to be less preachy on theooze, thanks to your patience. Happy New Year and God Bless
I love this post. I love it so much that I've been hoarding it in my gmail account so I can make my own commentary about writing spaces on my blog. A heads up that I'll paraphrase you -- please comment or email if I get it wrong!
But what I got from this post is that ultimately, it really is our fear of success that holds us back. There's a part of me that scoffs at this idea (Me? Fear being successful?), but there's a part of me that knows that fear definitely keeps me rooted a little too firmly in comfort zone land. Congratulations on cleaning your writing space AND on pushing yourself outside your comfort zone.
Paraphrase away, dear friend, and thanks again for the free psychotherapy. :-D It's nice to know someone's beside you when you're walking out into The Great Unknown.
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