Bless this mess
It’s over a full week into the new decade, my house is a mess, my eyebrows are unruly….and I’m happier than I’ve been in a long time.
I’m on day eight of a 30-day yoga journey; I’ve been reading and watching amazing things; I’ve taken on a couple of new projects, and, most importantly, I have been spending amazingly present quality time with my beautiful son. This year really couldn’t be better.
I’m finally allowing myself to let go of the minutia, the shoulds, the worrying about what my life might look like to someone else and I’ve been remembering to live.
A long time ago a friend of mine laughingly told me I loved being messy. I was stunned.
“What are you talking about, I hate it when things are a mess.”
“Really?” he said, “Whenever your desk or your house is a mess, you just always seem to be at your happiest.”
It’s taken me all these years to figure out that what he was seeing was the fact that when I am busy living my life most deeply, I don’t get as hung up about the pile of papers that needs sorting, or the laundry that needs to be put away, or whether my hair has gotten unruly. Perhaps I just missed some evolutionary step of adulting, but I’ve never quite managed to live deeply in the moment and keep it all in perfect order.
Or maybe the reality is that living, and growing, is messy – in a lot of different ways! Anyone who has young children can attest that growth spurts generally mean increased chaos and it’s really no different for adults. We tend to try to sweep it all under the rug and generally end up putting more of our energy into trying to control the mess than in trying to enjoy the moment, the change, the growth. Often, what surfaces from the mess are the things that really matter, the things that really make us the most alive.
So rather than try to fight your life back into submission this year, I say lean in, laugh and just let go. Let go of the details, quit worrying about the appearances, enjoy the mess, physical and emotional, and see what it has to teach you. I’m sure going to try.
Happy New Year, All!