The Chairs of Chaos

Things naturally fall into chaos if they aren't taken care of...

     Gardens
             Houses
                    Lawns
                          Carpets
                                 Lightbulbs
                                             Cars
                                                  Piles of mail and bills and whatnot
                                                            The human body
                                                    The mind              
                                             The soul
                                  Relationships
                        Marriages
                Friendships
          Children
Chairs...

I have let a lot of things go in my life.

For some strange reason I didn't know life took so much

                                             W-o-r-k.

That it took so much
                                     effort
                                                 to maintain    

                let alone improve and grow and blossom and flourish.


Look at these chairs:

This is what became of many parts of my life.

And I'm not really sure why.

Not only did my chairs look like this --

   but my house looked like this
                (my basement especially looked like this -- worse, I'd say)
            my desk looked like this
                          (piles and piles of paper who-knows-what)              
                    my mind looked like this
                       my marriage looked like this
                                 my friendships looked like this
                                                                 
and here's the scary part:

I didn't realize how bad everything looked.  I knew, but I didn't know.

I didn't know how far in disrepair it all was.

Like stripping the fabric from these chairs --

Oh Yikes!!  I can't believe how dirty these are!!  I've been living this way?!


This way of life was a bar in my cage.  (Many bars in my cage...)  That I had placed there.  On purpose (I guess... according to my therapist.  Seriously?!  I let my house (etc.) be like this on Purpose?!  Why in the world do I do that?!)  Apparently I'm supposed to be the one that answers that question.


I still haven't figured out why I let it get so bad... why it went so far.

I still have a lot of figure out...


But what I do know...

                                   is that I don't want to live that way anymore.


There is no need to.


Finally.
        There is no need to.


This is part of my fluttering leaves (aka sort-of-turning-a-new-leaf):

I am going to take care of things.

I am going to take care of
                                 my house
                                     my lawn
                                           my car
                                                my desk
                                                       my relationships
                                                               (especially my relationships)

and....

                                                   my chairs.

Leaf Flutters (aka turning-over-a-new-leaf)

Leaf Flutterings

Sometimes it seems we need to turn over a new leaf.

Fluttering leaves captured by my mom.

To start over -- to begin again -- to start fresh and clean and new.

But no matter how many leaves we try to turn or twist or bend or toss...

                         ... we are still the same person.

Really.


We can change how we live

     We can change the choices and decisions we make

           We can change our language or our style
                                                             or the way we saunter across a room


But we are the same "me" after the leaf turn as we were before.


A person could lose 160 pounds....

      they could go through a massive change in how they think and
                                                                                 act and view the world...


            and they would still be the same beautiful mess of molecules that they were before.


In a good way.


I debated whether I should start a brand new blog.  One that wasn't full of former thoughts and musings.  One that wasn't who I was before.

But I still am the me I was before.

And that's life.

We can change -- even drastically -- but we can't get rid of our past.


And I wouldn't want to.

My past makes me who I am.


So instead of turning over a new leaf...

               I am pondering the flutterings of the many leaves of me.


     I see them

                blowing in the wind

                            catching the sunlight as they dance and wave

                                                                                                   and change.

A newness

           -- maybe not fresh and clean --

                                     but catching the light in beautiful and new ways.


A fluttering

              in my heart

                           to journey on.