Get Messy

“Look honey…things are about to get really messy. That’s the only way we make this picture more beautiful…”

No truer words have been uttered to me before.

You have to get messy to make things beautiful. You have to unpack things before they get rearranged into how you want them. Sorting through and making sense along the way can be daunting. Some days you have to pull everything out so you can see it in front of you before you know how to move through it. And it’s messy.

Skip the messy part and watch how much more chaotic things become. Those niggling little things that you needed to examine get shoved to the bottom of the pile, only to fester and make things worse in the long run. It’s like the one rotten strawberry that ruins the whole container. If you had only sorted through all of it...unpacked that container…you’d see more clearly.

So while I don’t love cleaning, I think it’s time. Some things are gonna get messy for me for a while. Maybe even a little ugly. But I am okay with that. I feel like my life needed a deep clean anyhow. Sorting, cleaning, and throwing away that which no longer serves me is just the thing I have needed these days to create space for what’s to come.

Making room for that magical, lovely work of art called life to take a shape of it’s own now.

Messy rooms.

Some days, I wake up and look at my son's room and sigh. It's always a mess. Carpet tiles askew. Bed never made. Clothes strewn about the room. I turn the other way as much as I can. But honestly, some days it gets to me. The mess feels chaotic - like loud music with a lot of dischord.

Lately, though I have been leaning into the mess. I walk by the room and smile a little. Nothing has changed except, perhaps, for my outlook on it. He's growing up. In 2 years he will be gone, walking across the stage in a cap and gown, a sea of opportunity in front of him. After that, his little room that he has know since he was 2 will be tidy, quiet, and organized. But it won't have him in it.

So today, I sat in here for a few minute. I admired the spots and stains on his white carpet tiles from the juice he spilled when he was sick. I traced the tiny, dirty hand prints on the wall that he outgrew so quickly. I picked up a little matchbox car he has on his bedside table and remember all of it... flood of memories I can't quite contain before they come spilling out around me, messy and chaotic...just like his room.

I guess the moral of the story is that life is messy when we have more in it. Soon enough, his sheets will be tucked in, dresser dusted, and life will be tidied up. For now though, I will hang on to the mess. It reminds me of how much I have to hold on to.