I've been thinking a lot lately about curating my life - I like the term, "curated", as it gives me a sense of intention - a deliberate choosing of what to put into both my home and my days. Perhaps with all the turmoil and busyness this year has brought, it has created in me a desire for a calm, uncluttered life.
Mom has been hospitalized four times this year. Weeks in a nursing home. Lots of home care visitors. Lots of doctor appointments and tests. It's been very difficult to find a rhythm for our days, to say the least.
Jennifer's latest post, on elefantz.com, really made me think. She used the word "rhythms", which struck a chord with me. I remember reading awhile ago that someone decided to think of those never-ending chores as "cycles" - getting up in the morning and figuring out where they were in the laundry cycle, the dish cycle, etc. I tried to think of those things that way, but it didn't work for me. I'm a problem-solver - and dirty dishes in the sink? I see those as a problem, so I solve that problem and forget it. Trouble is, it's a never-ending problem. So, thinking of those chores as rhythms is easier for me. Like the ebb and flow of the tide - they're always with us, there's no end, but by changing my perception of them, it creates less stress.
Especially with mom here. This is the cleanest you'll ever see my kitchen table:
That's all mom's stuff. We have boxes of medical equipment on a stool that I can no longer use, along with the Play-Doh that she uses to help her hands be more flexible.
Nothing gets put away, because there is no place for it, and we use it every day. For an order-loving obsessive like me, what to do? It's our rhythm for now.
I do get to escape to my art room almost every day. And it calms my soul.
That's about as cluttered as I like to see ANY horizontal surface when not actually in use. That's my natural rhythm.
And now, we've made the decision that mom will stay here, we will bring some of her stuff here, furniture and paintings - don't ask me where we'll put it. This will take some serious curating for my home! And now her home as well. I want her to feel at home here, not like she's just taking up space that I'd rather use for something else.
Living with intention, making the decision to either add or remove something from your days, these are hard things - but I feel so much better for doing them. Choosing to spend my time doing not just for mom but for myself as well - reading my bible, drawing, painting, caring for my home - these are things that are not only necessary but joyful. Cluttering up my days with too much to do makes me crazy stressed. A deliberate slowing, and choosing to think in terms of rhythms instead of problems has actually solved a problem, of never enough time to take care of the daily "problems" (dishes, laundry, meds, errands) that aren't really problems, but tasks....and there is a rhythm to them, it just took a change of mind to see it.
How do you curate your time and home? I'd love to know.
Til next time;
Love,
Allie
