32. Gratitude and simplifying

Misery is impossible with gratefulness.

~ Osho

Before I sat down to write this post I was busy drawing and then cooking my breakfast. Throughout those activities, I tried to stay in the moment and be present with what I was doing, but my mind would stray and start writing my blog post for me. However, by the time I put my fingers on the keyboard, all of the thoughts and ideas had disappeared. I have no idea what I meant to write about today.

Day 32 and I'm feeling grateful for having gotten this far. Grateful to Holly over at Hip Sobriety for The Mantra Project. Grateful for all the support I've received at Hello Sunday Morning. Grateful for the support and comments from the Un-Tipsy Teacher. Grateful for my husband, my family, and my friends for all of their support. And grateful for this opportunity to begin to learn about who I am without alcohol.

Are you familiar with the FlyLady? A few years ago I tried her method of cleaning in an effort to get organized and to have a neat and tidy home. That didn't quite work out for me, but I did learn that I loved going to bed with my kitchen sinks shining. In other words, the dishes were done and the sinks were clean. 

This morning when I walked out to the kitchen in the near-dark, I saw the dirty dishes sitting by the sink and I smiled. For years I've been bothered by dirty dishes that were left overnight, and yet for years I wouldn't do the dishes because I'd been drinking and the drinking was more important than washing the dishes. I'd get up in the morning, hungover (even if it was just a low-level hangover from my variation of moderation which would be about 3-4 drinks/beers), and I'd wash the damn dishes. Every now and then, I'd put aside the alcohol for five or ten minutes and wash the damn dishes right after dinner.

Now, you might think washing dishes was some kind of huge chore if you were judging by how I acted. We do have a dishwasher and the majority of the dirty dishes end up in there. There are usually only a few dishes that need to be washed by hand. Washing up those few dishes is not the big deal I built it up to be.

I've learned something else during these 30+ days of sobriety. None of it is the big deal I built it up to be. Not the dishes, not the laundry, not the vacuuming, not the organizing, not the ironing, not the heavy duty cleaning. None of it. There are better ways to spend time in life.

I'm not saying the chores don't have to be done. I don't feel comfortable in a dirty and/or cluttered house. But I also found that sometimes I would rather take a walk, meditate, draw, play with photographs in editing programs, write, play with the cats, snuggle with my husband, and just generally participate in life and life activities. Sometimes the cleaning can wait. And when that happens, I'm okay with getting up in the morning to the few dirty dishes from the day before, and washing them up before breakfast.

Because it really is okay if my home and I are not perfect and not worthy of a photo shoot for some interior design magazine. It's okay if my sinks aren't shining all the time.

All of that said/written, I am in the mood to start simplifying my life and paring things down so that chores become easier and less time consuming. For the rest of 2017, I will make it a point to get rid of one thing every day. Yes, every single day. Frankly, I think I could do that for two or three years and still have plenty of stuff. I am not a hoarder, but I am a nonrelinguisher.

In yoga, there is a concept called aparigraha, or nonpossessiveness and nonhoarding. This covers all sorts of things from the stuff we collect and hold on to, to our beliefs. Aparigraha is about letting go of that which is no longer needed.

Aparigraha embodies the idea of good things to come. Once we realize that we can actually part with whatever it is we have been holding on to -- the ten-year-old t-shirts with sentimental value, the receipts we never turned in, the clutter of our lives -- we begin to understand that we are clearing a space for something better. The past is dead, and we are making room for the living.
...Oftentimes when we believe that we've been holding on to something we need, we find that the reverse is actually true. The real loss is the emptiness, the soul sickness, that we feel around any form of fear disguised as greed or hoarding. The symbols of our fear block us from the light of our own spirit. As we step away from these symbols, these phantoms, a wind catches our sails. Lighter, freer, we look up and glimpse the far shore, and suddenly we are filled with the joy of 'absurd good news.'" 

~ Rolf Gates & Katrina Kenison, Meditations From The Mat

That is where I'm at right now. As I let go of alcohol and a life lived in an alcohol-induced haze and hangovers, I also want to let go of the things that block the light and clutter up the house. That includes, funnily enough, those ten-year-old t-shirts (some decades older than that!!).

Peace, love, and happiness,
Rania ☼