Piles have been the bane of my existence for years.
Years.
Check this out:
Yup. That's my kitchen counter.
Disgusting.
Do you think you could function in that?
Yeah. Me neither.
I have wrestled and struggled with piles, it seems like my whole life.
My piles have been a complete mystery to me. Like, seriously. What's with my piles? Where do they come from? Why don't other people have them? Why do they have such power over me? Why do they overpower me to the point of not being able to function?
Strange.
For years and years I've made outlandish goals like: This year I'm going to become a pile-less person.
I've spent hours upon hours sifting through and getting rid of piles . . . but like uncontrollable, man-eating weeds, their roots go deep and they always sprout up again. Usually the next day. Sometimes hours after the original pile has been banished (and sometimes mere minutes.)
Yikes. It hurts my heart just thinking about it.
One unassuming day, when I told my therapist that my house was eating me, he looked at me and said: "Your piles have a function."
Huh?
What's that supposed to mean?
I thought about it for a whole week.
I came back and said, "You mean I have my piles on purpose? I'm the one doing this for some reason?"
He said, "Yes."
Me: "Why?!?!"
Him: "I don't know."
Oh. I guess I'm the one who is supposed to figure that one out.
I thought and thought and dredged and sorted and sifted through thoughts for a whole week.
Hard work.
Tough work.
I thought maybe I had figured it out. Maybe just an inkling.
When I came back, the more I talked about the piles and my perceived function of them . . . he said, "Your piles are bars in your cage. What are you afraid of? Why are you keeping yourself caged in? What are you protecting yourself from? What are you guarding yourself from?"
It was like the sound of an ancient redwood breaking in half -- splintering -- and falling heavily into the lush green underbrush below. It was like the golden sunlight streaming in after the tree fell.
Whoa.
That's crazy train.
Bars in my cage . . .
I've discovered that my piles have nothing to do with my perceived lack of time as a working mother of young children. My piles are not alive things that sprout roots and grow. My piles do not exist just because I have more stuff than most people.
My piles are purely emotional.
They have a power over me.
They keep me in fear. They keep me caged in.
And I'm sick of it.
My favorite line of my therapist's is when he said I could look at a pile and say, "Hey. This doesn't work in my program."
I've used that line countless times in the past few weeks.
I don't know why. It just works for me.
(Sometimes therapists get lucky with a real zinger.)
You should see my kitchen counter. It looks nothing like that picture at the top of this post. The pile is gone. It has been obilterated. It no longer exists. When I get the mail, I can't even put it down in that spot. Not because I'm trying to avoid a pile. But because it no longer works in my program.
The rest of my house, unfortunately, looks like that picture you see.
But the power my piles have over me is diminishing.
And that is the key.
The key to freedom.
As good ol' what's his face says in Braveheart . . .
"FREEEEEDOM!"
Yeah. Freedom.
Time to get to work.
