Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Junk

Not a super impressive title but junk is very much on my mind.  I have a lot of junk cluttering my mind, my bottom, my heart, and my house.  I think I am cleaning most of the junk out and away and then I have some of those blah days.  And I realized all I did for the most part was to move the junk out of my view; like dust the trash and stick it in a cupboard and call it a day.  Yes that looks nice that must mean the junk is gone.  Lah lah lah!  And then wham I am hit by the junk when I am either having a great moment and realize "Oh there is still a lot of junk - and what does junk do ?  It weighs a person down!"  So bye bye super mood.  Or what is actually scarier is when the junk sneaks up on you when you are already feeling down in the dumps and the junk doesn't just weigh you down; it downright suffocates you.  You know that feeling?  When you already feel overwhelmed and a friend calls with bad news or you are in the middle of a break-up or a fight with a loved one and you get demoted.  The junk that tears you down can be as simple as you were tardy for an appointment because the car was low on gas and then you get home just ticked off about the events of your days and wham - you step on the toy someone left out and you trip - stubbing your toe, twisting your ankle - something painful but not the end of the world.  But IT IS THE END OF THE WORLD - perhaps you throw the offending toy - or an unfriendly word - maybe you shed tears.  But you have hit the point of too much junk!

Are you really that upset about the toy?  No.  Was the demotion out of the blue?  Usually not.  Feeling overwhelmed was it all foisted upon you at once - again probably the result of several if not many different choices and actions.  Junk handled in small doses is usually pretty manageable.  It's when we let the "junk" multiply and take over - that debt, that anger, that clutter, that weight, that procrastination.  All that stuff that we like to push into closets has to eventually be dealt with.  That junk isn't fading away, its not playing nice and planning to wave good-bye - it is plotting to steal your happiness, your health, and invade your life in everyway possible. 

Some of the "junk" I had jump out is the clutter in our house.  We have been purging in spurts and when we some open areas we rejoice and then fall back into the exact same old habits that first accumulated all of the junk.  For instance we are weird paper hoarders because my hubby Corey and I don't always like to deal with papers immediately.  And paper piles grow like you wouldn't believe.  When we moved from North Dakota to South Carolina - we moved at least eight garbage bags of paperwork.  80% trash but 20% actually important documents that we wanted to hold on.  We (I will admit mostly me) have that habit of stowing the papers in a plastic bag waiting to be sorted.  And then that bag fills up so we grab another.  And another - see the pattern?  But then one day we'll sort the three bags into trash, shred, and keep.  Well the keep pile rarely gets placed into proper storage and just becomes the new bag to gather paperwork.  The garbage always gets a nudge out the door.  So yay one out of three bags goes immediately away and we feel successful.  The shred bag should be easy to deal with but as I say this three bags currently sit in my closet ready to shred.  It seems inconvenient with a toddler.  Either he's sleeping or would be way too interested or annoyed by the noise.  And who wants to create an upset toddler when the world does that enough on its own :)    So that is some of the junk.

Other junk is some emotional anxiety.  I am going away for the weekend (alone) and won't be in control of my household - keeping it clean, keeping the family happy and not in charge of my own life.  Which has me reaching for the junk food.  Which I feel like my sal the snacker is taking over because Suzy tastes some of this junk and questions why am I eating this I don't even like it!  And then some of the choices I just don't like the feeling afterward because its JUNK food.  See how junk multiplies quickly.

So I guess thats where my obsession with junk is stemming from?  I am tired of the junk surrounding me and complain about the junk.  And yet, I have a lot of trouble letting go of the junk.  Even though I find it disrupting and upsetting - its comfortable - its familiar - its excuses and rationalizations.  And I know.  Maybe not know, but truly believe that the other side through the junk is wonderful, its exciting, its freedom, its simple truth.  But as I whine about my junk I pull my ice cream a little closer, I hide my shred piles a little deeper, and smile a bit harder to cover the anxiety and hide all my junk.

On this HealthFULL Journey I feel I have circled a lot of this junk several times as the pile to deal with "tomorrow".  Tomorrow comes and I think one more time around should do the trick.  The junk is just growing and the tomorrows are fading.  Its time to grab the trash bag, and the broom.  Let's not continue to sweep this junk under the rug (or other convenient hiding places) but let's truly sweep this junk out and away.

May your HealthFULL Journey reveal treasures as you clean out the junk. 'Til we meet again. . .

 

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