The Battle of Shrink

It gets worse before it gets better.

The first thing you have to do is unpack all the old baggage. The trauma, sadness, and unresolved issues you’ve shoved in the corner under the laundry need to be brought out into the open. You spread your shit all over the floor, going through each piece individually.

Not until you have unpacked and inventoried the grief can you begin to put it away.

Now you need a plan. How to organize it all. What do you keep, and what do you throw away. If it’s something you keep you need to decide where to put it. Find some space on a shelf where it can be neatly tucked away. It’s still accessible to be revisited, but is not longer in the middle of the floor and now lives peacefully in the closet. Then there are the things you throw away. Childhood habits that are hard to part with. It takes time to say goodbye. Even if your throw it away, is it ever truly gone? Sometimes pieces get left behind. Don’t forget the throw the cookie away, before it starts to grow mold. Can’t have it stinking up the whole room again.

The process is never truly done. More crap accumulates and has to be cleared out. It’s easier if you deal with new things as they arrive, but sometimes it builds up again. And you have to go digging to clean out all the nooks and crannies. It isn’t easy. It isn’t fun. It is work that has to be done.