Getting Rid of the Clutter

“Don't own so much clutter that you will be relieved to see your house catch fire.” 
― Wendell Berry

You find me this month in the beginning stages of downsizing.  I know you must be thinking how can you be downsizing when you rent a room?  Well, I am moving into a much smaller room later this month in a more prime location.  I may be giving up a little bit of space and a tad amount of privacy, but I am gaining central air conditioning, a nice large patio and a fully equipped kitchen I share with only one other individual.  Not to mention the fact that I will be right down the street from a large park where I like to jog.  Looking at the mess that is my room, I have no idea how I even managed to get all of my belongings into my car the first time around, but I will most definitely not be taking all of them with me to my next dwelling.

I guess you can say that I’ve been clearing away the clutter from my life as well.  This past month has brought a lot of acceptance on my part.  Accepting where I am in life and my part in it all.  Accepting that my choosing to stay on a path of destruction might have made me miss out on some of the very things I desperately wish were a part of my life and accepting the cold hard fact that it might be too late for some of those things at this point.  It’s a hard pill to swallow, but through this acceptance I have been able to relinquish some of the control I foolishly hold onto.  It’s so strange how the things I nonchalantly ask God for are the very things He provides, but when it comes to the things I cannot let go of and continue to pray, beg and plead for… He doesn’t even touch.  I guess He is waiting for me to leave them in His hands and by leave He must mean give to Him, relinquish all control and go on about my business… Something I don’t do very well.  If you think about it, it is practically impossible to do anything with something someone keeps taking back and messing with.  It's like a spreadsheet you spent hours formatting only to find that someone else logged in and managed to delete half of your painstaking work.

I guess it makes sense that I shouldn’t have to keep checking in on my God and making sure He knows what He’s supposed to be doing on my behalf.  I guess I should stop rearranging all the prayers in my prayer box each week.  Yes, I do that.  I guess I need to learn that age-old lesson that says if you truly want to see God work, then you have to truly let go of the situation.  So when I say I have been getting rid of the clutter, I mean I have been practicing giving God the control He deserves.  He definitely led me to California and He definitely placed me in the right part of LA for my first year.  He also led me to a job, that while it is very taxing on me, I am around some very amazing people that treat me extremely well and not many people can say the same.  He also lead me to a church with people who have been willing to put up with me while I was scraping through my first stages of sobriety and now He has lead me to a great new dwelling for year two of life in LA.  When I say I am getting rid of the clutter, I mean I am letting go of bad habits.  I am letting go of fear and letting go of control and taking steps to simplify my life and my time and loving every minute of the person I am slowly becoming.  Besides, life is too short to deal with the ramifications of a cluttered soul.