Embrace the Mess? – retirementtransition

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I’m continuing to love the Spirit of a Hippie FaceBook posts most mornings as they feel so relatable at the moment. A paraphrase of one last week: “Some days the churn in my gut or the constriction in my chest overwhelms. It might seem like I’m shutting others out, but I need time to just be with the broken pieces of myself. I’m not feeling strong. My emotions are getting the best of me. I am making mistakes. I am trying to accept the mess – the mess of me, the mess that is. I am also getting up each day and simply putting one foot in front of the other.”

The mess that is. It feels so appropriate. And so, I explored messiness.

I’ve never been able to join the anti-clutter movement. With a hubby who 1) firmly believes if one of something is good, five is better; 2) is a garbage picker and a hoarder (you never know when you might need it); 3) believes every horizontal surface is designed to be piled upon, and 4) has limited organizational skills, decluttering our home was a fantasy. Then there’s me. Despite reading about Marie Kondo’s “does it bring you joy” approach, I had a hard time letting go of art work/art pieces, my books, and my memorabilia. I joked often that we bought a second home so I would have more space for artwork. Even though for years decluttering was the thing to do, I was never going to have a tidy, beautifully styled, minimalist home with clever storage solutions and strategically placed art.

Despite this abysmal failure at decluttering, Mother Nature did a good bit of decluttering for us with the hurricanes. But even with the hurricane loss of a lot of what others might say is “clutter”, we actually still have a lot of stuff. Right now, we have an absolutely cluttered, messy apartment with things piled in every single corner and on every surface! We have boxes and bags packed randomly and sitting in three different physical locations and the mess of not knowing if we salvaged something or not, and if so, where it might be. Yes, still too much stuff, too much clutter, too much mess.

What a relief to read that it’s now apparently OK to embrace the mess that comes with normal life. While our culture still seems to associate messiness with laziness, there is growing scientifically-backed evidence that messiness can be considered good for you! Messiness can stimulate creativity by encouraging unconventional, divergent thinking. Messiness can allow you to break free from traditional patterns and make unexpected connections. Working in a slightly messy environment, compared to a tidy one, can lead to more innovative ideas.

And so, I will try to embrace the mess. When we return to our (to be built) home, I know there will be cluttered countertops that keep the items we use every day at our fingertips. There will be lovingly displayed but chaotic art on the walls and shelves. There will be cabinets and drawers packed full of odds and ends we might need someday. But I do hope there will not be randomly packed bags and boxes stacked in every corner nor piles of paper on every single surface! There’s mess and then there’s MESS!

Does knowing that messiness is OK relieve you from the “should” of decluttering?

Picture Credit: A giant gnome from a garden tour this week, just because..