Eclectic

Melissa's fabulous. No, more than fabulous. She's amazing! This new best friend. I just knew it from the second I met her - this is someone I'm going to be friends with. She's a professional organizer (yikes Mikes!), and the first time she came over to the house I was more than a little self-conscious as to how she'd see it.

"Well," I said, "What do you think?"

"Eclectic," she tactfully said.

That's not the first time I've heard that. Carolyn said that, as well. I think that's code for something. Messy, maybe. Junky? Maybe. None of our furniture matches, and the paintings range from an amazing Star Wallowing Bull over our mantle to an Ace Powell right next to it. Burgundy Persian rugs and rust colored flowered easy chairs. Hmm...eclectic.

"What should we DO?" I dramatically asked my sweet husband, my arm flung over my forehead, me draped over the side of the chair. "I love all my stuff."

"Honey," he said, "It's who you ARE. Every time you throw something out it leaves a hole in our house, then you just go out and buy something to replace the hole with."

I look at our library. I love that room. It's got built-in bookshelves on two walls that are filled with antique books, reference books, fiction, non-fiction, spirituality, children's - yes, they're categorized. It houses my beautiful cello, Celeste (yes, I named my cello - so what), and our baby grand piano, Sophie, our beautiful 200 year old plant (yes, I named my plant - so what), my mom's antique doll collection, Dad's army hat, my Athlete of the Year basketball award, Steve's Shriner's hat, and a Turner sculpture. If someone were to tell me to get rid of half of everything in that room I would start crying. I love everything I've got.

Maybe the key is breathing into what I've got and not buying anything MORE. Is that a hoarder's justification? Maybe I need to strong arm myself and give away 50 things I cherish, just to make myself detach from things. Maybe I need Melissa to roll up her sleeves and get in here and show me how it's done, really done, not this pansy butt giving away a pair of shorts here, a pair of shoes there.

I walked out to the garage today, ready to tackle no-man's land. I'll give my french horn away to the high school, get the Underwood typewriter fixed so I can type on it (how cool would THAT be? Pretty cool), throw out 6 of the 9 tennis rackets, 7 of the 10 baseball gloves (I'm not joking). I can do this. I walk out, start moving stuff around. There's a pile of garbage in the corner where the paint is peeling off the wall from the leak 10 years ago. I don't know what to do. I sigh, turn around and walk back into the house.

Sometimes I feel paralyzed. Okay, a lot of the time I feel paralyzed, and I wonder if my achy knees is symbolic for my inability to move out of this energetic stuff muck. I think so. I think I am painfully awake now that I have stopped eating cows and pigs, have stopped spending money on unnecessary things, and have actually looked at my life. We need to move. That would fix everything. No, it wouldn't. I think I'm stuck with myself. What to do? Uhm, go eat some organic chocolate, I think. That will help. Really? No. Just kidding. It won't help. I'll go finish reading "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother" - that will put my life into perspective, I think. Then maybe I'll go force my 11 year old to practice his violin for 6 hours. Hah. Just kidding. Man, what a riot this life is. I can hardly wait to see what tomorrow brings. I'm sure it will continue to be a laugh a minute.