Feng Shui Closet

I didn't have much workout planned for last night after I got off work, and I went and rocked my abs slightly on the Bean and considered The Closet of my weights room. I'd wanted to assemble a new desk, but wasn't sure I had all my tools, which are in the closet, hopefully, somewhere. The closet has been the catch-all for too many things over time, no matter that I tried to keep its scope limited. As opening the closet displayed, it looked more like something out of a comedy movie, where anybody smart would close the door immediately before 500 items came crashing out upon them.

A couple weeks ago, or especially prior, I would never have considered tackling this, or even beginning. When you don't have the energy to make it more than 30% through any project, never mind its cleanup, you learn to just avoid projects altogether. Everything gets worse before it gets better of course, so that'd just leave you with having made things much worse. But last night I had the feeling that it was time to start on it. One area at a time; whatever I could do. My goal being to get through one region of the closet, and get everything cleaned up and my weights room returned to its normal clean spacious self, by the time the night was over.

Half a dozen big porcelain dolls of the kid went to live on her bed. Wrapping paper in the tubes, after I tried to store it in a variety of ways, got tossed in frustration. All gift bags and folded wrapping paper got condensed into a single big bag. Then I had an entire top shelf, one wall to the other, of binders and envelopes. I realized that these were put there in spring of 2000 when I moved here. Binders filled with stuff I created or collected for interests I had -- guitar, songwriting, handwriting analysis, some other things. The envelopes held tons of stories I wrote around age 18-20 and typed laboriously on my little manual. Four yearbooks from the dark ages... and tons of photos.

I spent most the night putting photos in the many big binders I had for them, to organize them. I couldn't have sat on the floor so long or done this previously, and it felt so novel that I was actually accomplishing something. But it was rather sad to look at the last ten years of photos, from my kids' life, and hate every photo that had me in it. When I looked at photos of times when I wasn't huge, I was happy to have them; it was a pleasant reminder. Everything else, I just grimaced and wish that I didn't have to keep it at all, which I only do because my parents rightfully insist that someday my kid or grandkid might want to have pictures of me when I'm gone. Yearbooks from a teenagehood of utter misery. And pictures of my stepmother 'doing things' with my kid that I haven't been able to. It ended up being a rather emotional night.

But that part got done. The closet still has a lot to be worked on, another night. I figure, this is one corner of the house, I will just gradually work my way through the house. If I work on something almost every night, it shouldn't take more than a few months before I'm through even the garage (a nightmare of epic proportions).

My body still has that bizarre insistence on heavy sleep. I had nightmares last nights, as did my little girl (who got lucky with my good mood last night so was sleeping beside me), and we even frightened in bizarrely parallel ways in our dreams last night, as if the same elements played out in different ways for each. I'm probably just venting stored biochemical (repressed emotion). I haven't been eating enough, as usual, but it's not just preventing my losing weight; at this point I am 8 lbs. heavier than I was ten days ago. Go figure!

I'm trying not to get freaky about it but it's kind of difficult. I'm surely not working out enough to gain significant muscle yet, and although I have a slight bloat it's no more it seems than it was a week ago yet my weight is like 4 lbs higher than then. So I just have no idea what's going on. I'm telling myself to not be hysterical and just keep on, don't go off the eating plan (whatever plan it might be, at this point eating period is enough of an accomplishment), keep working out, and trust that things will get better somehow. I have a measure point this coming Sunday. I better have lost some kind of size or I'm definitely going to be upset!