Me: Hello, class!
You: Hello, Ms. Nony!
Me: Today I am sharing an object lesson with you.
That’s right. An Ob-ject Le-sson is a lesson that helps you understand a concept by showing you how that concept works in a different situation. A situation you can see.
Do you see the cluttered car in the picture above?
You: (Nod head silently, with great energy and interest.)
Me: That is our oooollllddd car. The one we used to drive. The one our family enjoyed so much for several years and that took us back and forth to the swimming pool all summer long.
Do you like to swim?
OK. I’m done writing in my teacher voice. If you weren’t reading all that with a teacher voice in your head, I’m sorry for the confusion.
Anyway, we just bought a new (to us) Suburban to replace our much-loved ’97. When it was time to get the old(er) one ready to sell, we had to clean it out.
That’s right. The picture above is NOT staged for the purposes of this lesson. Let’s just call it a teachable moment.
Anyway, it occurred to me as I sweated and decluttered and vacuumed and scrubbed that it’s basically the same concept as my crazy Master Bedroom Saga. I would never-ever-ever transfer all the . . . ahem . . . stuff from the passenger-side floorboard of my old Suburban to the passenger side floorboard of my less-old Suburban.
No, I want to enjoy the scrubbed-and-vacuumed-by-someone-other-than-me beauty for as long as I possibly can.
That’s right. I’ve been using the ’01-car-smell and the absence of stuff to help me remember to properly threaten anyone who dares open his/her backpack before we get home.
Knee-deep-in-clutter I don’t see. Open spaces I do see.
It’s strange, I know.
It’s the basic concept behind removing EVERYthing from the master bedroom.
To inspire myself. To help me see the room.
To break the clutter cycle. Or at least pause it.
Because I’m under no delusion that I will never again have a messy bedroom. But if this project is anything like all the other ba-jillion decluttering projects I’ve done . . . after this extreme purge it will be easier next time.
And then even easier the time after that.
And I plan on enjoying the pauses.
