Decluttering (Act 1, Act 2)

Today I am reminding myself that decluttering my life is probably best done in baby steps. This weekend, I decided that a personal situation (should I have put quotes around that?) was cluttering up my brain. So I put it on ice. The situation (not to be confused with "the situation"...oh gawd, the web traffic I may get from that...please, no). If I am going to focus on simplifying my life, it doesn't just mean the stack of magazines by the door. It means handling things like an adult and focusing on what is in my control right now and what is best for me. And trusting that I am in the right place for good things to happen. Anyhoo.

I decided to document some of my acts of decluttering. Watch how mundane they seem at first. It's laughable. But I am working up to the big stuff. The goal is to get "unstuck." And while I document the steps for myself, I am cluttering up your blog reader. I am sorry, but...here I go.

Step one: Planning for the big stuff/preparing for getting out of my house. Called bathroom contractors (because I really cannot ask anyone else to put up with the 1968 bathroom I inherited...it is horrible!). It's going to take a little time to pry me out of this rut. Doing something like moving out of the house I have been in for 9+ years is super-daunting. Right now, I am looking for the small things I can do to get ready and trying to focus on those. And not thinking ahead to what the big things are. I was talking to someone this weekend and they said that they had noticed that I am stuck; not in my ideal situation but just comfortable enough: in the suburbs, friends I really love in my neighborhood, living at the top of a hill. Jebus, that hill is such a metaphor. I need to take my foot off the brakes a little and let myself roll down.

And step two: removed myself from a bunch of aliases at work. The worst thing that could happen is I don't get a mail that wasn't an absolute requirement that I see in the first place. It's almost definitely my ego that tells me that I need to be on these aliases, because I am very, very important (I am not) and need *all* of this information. Most of it sits in my inbox and then gets deleted. But not before it makes me feel either a) annoyed or b) like a failure for not doing a better job of keeping up on my mail. Enough of that.

And taking deep breaths. And trusting myself. This is going to be good.