Exorcism

For some, exorcism conjures images of pea green soup and possessed little girls, priests and the seedy underbelly of Catholicism where it meets mystic and demonic ritual.

For me, it's about closets.

I have this passion for tearing everything out of my closets and exorcising the demons of my disorganization, be it clothes or office supplies, shoes (yes, I have an entire closet for shoes--and three shelves in another closet), or bath products, I have closets galore and they are filled with so much stuff that, when I get busy, I often just grab and shove until there's such a mess I can't tell my spaghetti strap tanks from my solid cotton t-shirts.

Everything used to be sorted by color--I still sort of stick to that--but now it's more about like items with like items, and today, digging through drawers and closets, boxes and bags I haven't looked into for awhile, I'm finding all kinds of things I'm just done with.  Do I really need a t-shirt from a concert I didn't attend, even if it is a band I like, when I haven't worn the thing in seriously over five years?  Or how about that pair of shoes I got way way way on clearance with the killer spike heel that hurt so much when I wear them that I basically always have to be sitting down?

Nope.  Today I am the exorcist, sorting and tossing and generally putting things into an order that suits this me.  It feels so good to take control of your space, even if I have basically been working on one room for the last four hours.  But a woman's bedroom is a sacred space, it's bound to take a little time.

Take heart, though, fans--I am not haphazardly gutting my life.  I have held on to the really important items, like the necklace my grandmother had made for me when I graduated from high school and my Ghostbusters eraser from 3rd grade on which I wrote my name and the fact that I was in 3rd grade.  Priceless.

Some things have to be let go so that we can move into more open space while others, even if we thought we were done with them, resurface and prove to be the most important things in our lives.

Love, I have discovered recently, is like that, too.  Sometimes we have to say goodbye to the love we thought would be our life so that the truest love can take root, hold fast, and grow.