Making Room For The Life I’m Living

Making Room for the Life I’m Living

I am not a hoarder. Never have been. In fact, since perimenopause decided to amplify my OCD tendencies and shine a great big spotlight on my ADHD, I’ve become even less tolerant of clutter and things that don’t have a purpose. I like things organized, I like things to have a home, and I really don’t like unnecessary stuff taking up space. At least, that’s what I’ve always believed about myself.

Tim and I have spent the entire weekend overhauling my sewing room, and what was supposed to be a fun project to create a beautiful, functional space for my ever-growing quilting obsession has unexpectedly turned into something of an emotional journey. As we’ve emptied drawers, moved furniture, opened boxes, and rearranged what feels like every square inch of that room, I’ve found myself asking the same question over and over again. Why am I saving this?

I’m not talking about the fabric, quilting supplies, or the ridiculous number of projects I have running through my head at any given time. Those things have a place in the life I’m living right now. I’m talking about the photographs, the souvenirs from trips, the little keepsakes, and the random things that have followed me through multiple moves and different chapters of my life. Things that have absolutely no practical purpose anymore but somehow feel impossible to part with because of the memories attached to them.

The biggest stumbling block this weekend has been my grandmother’s ironing cabinet. From a practical standpoint, it makes absolutely no sense to keep it. It’s too small to be particularly useful for the amount of pressing I do when quilting, the door opens in the wrong direction for where I’d need to put it, and after spending time in both the attic and the garage, it’s definitely seen better days. It’s not especially pretty anymore, it doesn’t fit the new layout, and there are a dozen reasons why getting rid of it would be the logical decision. But every time I look at it, I can vividly remember sitting in Mom’s sewing room as a little girl, watching her iron PawPaw’s shirts on that very ironing board. I can still picture her standing there, going about an ordinary task that probably seemed completely insignificant at the time. It’s funny how the most mundane moments of our childhood can become some of the most precious memories we carry into adulthood.

And that’s where things get complicated. Because that cabinet isn’t just an old piece of furniture to me. It’s a connection to a person and a time in my life that I can never revisit. But the more I’ve thought about it this weekend, the more I’ve started questioning whether keeping the physical object actually does anything to preserve the memory. I don’t need the cabinet sitting in my sewing room to remember Mom ironing PawPaw’s shirts. That memory is so clear in my head that I can close my eyes and see it without any help from a piece of furniture. So why does the thought of letting it go feel like I’m somehow losing a little piece of her all over again?

The same question applies to so many other things I’ve come across this weekend. Photographs of my children when they were little, souvenirs from trips taken in another chapter of my life, keepsakes connected to Fred, and things that remind me of people who aren’t here anymore. I can spend hours looking through these things, remembering who we were, where we went, and what life looked like before everything changed. But no matter how many things I keep, they aren’t going to make my children little again. They aren’t going to bring Fred home. They aren’t going to give me another afternoon with my grandmother. Those chapters are over, whether I’m ready to admit it or not, and keeping every physical reminder doesn’t change that reality.

So at what point does holding on to things stop being a way of keeping the people we love close and start preventing us from making room for the season of life we’re actually living? That’s the question I keep coming back to, and I genuinely don’t know the answer. I don’t want to erase the past or pretend those people and experiences weren’t incredibly important parts of my life. Quite the opposite. They helped shape the person I am today. But I also don’t want to spend the rest of my life surrounded by things that remind me of what used to be while struggling to make room for what is.

Of course, my brain doesn’t work through these things in any kind of orderly fashion. My ADHD brain takes one perfectly reasonable thought, bounces it off another, and before I know it, I’ve got a hundred thoughts ricocheting around like ping pong balls that nobody can control. One minute I’m trying to decide whether an old ironing cabinet deserves a place in my newly designed sewing room. The next I’m remembering my grandmother, then my kids when they were little, then Fred, then wondering where on earth all the years have gone. Somewhere in the middle of all that, I remember I’m supposed to be organizing fabric, but now I’m standing in the middle of the room holding something I haven’t looked at in ten years, wondering why I can’t bring myself to put it in the donation pile. It’s exhausting, and I’m sure Tim has wondered more than once this weekend how a simple room makeover managed to turn into such a complicated emotional exercise.

I know he doesn’t really understand it, and I don’t expect him to. Tim isn’t particularly attached to things. He’s much more practical about possessions, and if something no longer serves a purpose, he’s perfectly content to let it go. In a lot of ways, I envy that. I wish my brain could look at an old piece of furniture, recognize that it doesn’t fit or function the way I need it to, and simply move on. Instead, I see the people, the places, and the moments attached to it. I see the little girl sitting in her grandmother’s sewing room. I see the young mom raising her children. I see the wife who had an entirely different life before this one. And suddenly getting rid of an object feels a whole lot bigger than just clearing out some clutter.

But here’s the other side of all of this that I keep trying to remind myself of. I have a wonderful life right now, too. I have Tim, who has spent his entire weekend helping me turn a room into a space I’ll genuinely love spending time in. I have grown children building lives of their own, a granddaughter who has brought an entirely new kind of joy into our family, and a creative passion that has become such an important part of who I am. There are new experiences to have, new places to explore, new quilts to make, and memories I haven’t even begun creating yet. This chapter of my life deserves space just as much as the ones that came before it.

Maybe that’s what I’m struggling to figure out. How do you honor the past without letting it take up so much room that the present has nowhere to settle? How do you decide which things are truly treasures and which things you’re keeping out of some misplaced sense of obligation to the memories attached to them? And perhaps most importantly, how do you convince your heart of something your logical brain already knows? That letting go of an object doesn’t mean letting go of the person who once owned it, the life you once lived, or the love you still carry for both.

I don’t have a neat and tidy answer to any of those questions. I’m still standing in the middle of a half-finished sewing room trying to figure out what stays and what goes, while my brain bounces between excitement over the new space and sadness over the things I’m considering letting go. Some of those things will absolutely stay, because they bring me joy and deserve a place in my home. Others probably need to find a new home, even if making that decision comes with a little sadness. And I’m beginning to think it’s okay for both of those things to be true.

What I do know is that I started this weekend trying to make room for a new sewing machine, better furniture, and a more functional space to create. I wasn’t expecting to find myself confronting how tightly I’ve been holding on to pieces of the past or questioning whether the things I’ve saved are actually helping me remember or simply making it harder to move forward.

I still haven’t decided what to do with my grandmother’s ironing cabinet. Maybe I’ll find a way to make it work, or maybe I’ll finally decide that its purpose in my life has been fulfilled. Either way, I’ll always remember sitting in that sewing room watching her iron PawPaw’s shirts. That memory has survived decades, moves, marriages, children growing up, and more life changes than I could possibly count. I suspect it’s strong enough to survive without the cabinet, too.

Maybe making room for this season of my life doesn’t have to mean closing the door on all the seasons that came before it. Maybe it’s simply learning that I can carry the memories forward without having to carry every single thing that goes with them.

And maybe, for now, that’s enough.

Coming Home Different

I knew this trip would be special. I knew we would see beautiful places, meet interesting people, eat incredible food, and make memories that would stay with us for years. What I didn’t expect was to come home feeling different. Not dramatically different, and not in a way I can neatly explain, but shifted somehow. Somewhere between unfamiliar streets, long days at sea, conversations with people we hope to see again, and mornings when there was absolutely nowhere I had to be, something in me finally got quiet. I had forgotten what that felt like.

Before we left, I was anxious about almost everything. I worried about what I was leaving behind, what might happen while I was gone, what I might forget, and all the pieces of everyday life I normally keep carefully balanced. Even as we started the trip, part of my brain was still at home, mentally running through lists and responsibilities. Feeling like I had abandoned people who were gonna go through major things while we were gone. But there is something about travel that slowly loosens your grip on all of that. You can only stand in front of so many beautiful places, wander through so many unfamiliar streets, and look out across so much open water before the noise starts to lose some of its power. The things that seemed so urgent back home begin to feel a little smaller, and eventually you realize the world kept turning without your constant supervision.

At some point, I actually rested. Not the kind of rest where you sit on the couch while checking your phone, answering emails, thinking about laundry, or mentally preparing for Monday, but the kind where your body and your mind both begin to understand that nothing is required of you in that moment. I think that may have been one of the greatest gifts of taking a longer vacation. So often we try to squeeze rest into five or seven days, but the first few days are spent getting there, recovering from travel, and adjusting to being away. Then we try to fit in everything we want to see and do, and just about the time we finally begin to relax, we are thinking about packing, flights, work, and everything waiting for us at home. This time there was enough time to move past the excitement and exhaustion, enough time to stop counting the days, and enough time to truly unwind.

There was also the wonder of meeting new people and seeing places I had only known through photographs or stories. We shared conversations with strangers from different places and different walks of life, wandered through cities layered with history, tried new foods, laughed at things that went wrong, and woke up not always knowing exactly what the day would bring. Travel has always reminded me how big the world is, but this trip reminded me how easy it is for my own world to become small when I am buried in routines, schedules, responsibilities, and expectations. There is so much life happening outside of the little circle we move through every day, and sometimes it takes leaving home to remember that.

Maybe that is why coming home feels so complicated. I missed home. I missed my own bed, familiar food, familiar routines, and the comfort of knowing where everything is. Yet as the trip came to an end, I also felt an unexpected anxiety about re-entering normal life. There are alarms, schedules, work, appointments, chores, responsibilities, and endless things that seem to need an immediate answer waiting on the other side of vacation. I found myself wondering how quickly the version of me who had finally learned to slow down would disappear once everyday life started demanding my attention again.

That may be the biggest thing I brought home with me: the realization that I don’t want to lose that version of myself. The woman who could sit still(ish) without feeling like she should be doing something else. The woman who wandered without needing every moment to have a purpose. The woman who looked around instead of constantly looking ahead. The woman who allowed herself to rest without feeling guilty about it. I think that is also why I came home already anxious to travel again. It isn’t because home isn’t good, and it isn’t because I want to escape my life. It is because travel reminds me of a version of myself that gets buried too easily in the middle of everyday living — a version that is curious, present, open, rested, and a little lighter.

Maybe the goal now isn’t simply to start planning the next trip, although I certainly want to do that. Maybe the real challenge is figuring out how to bring some of what I found out there back into my life here. To protect quiet moments instead of filling every empty space. To stop treating rest like something that has to be earned. To remember that not everything is urgent and that life does not fall apart simply because I step away from it for a while. Most of all, I want to remember how it felt to slow down enough to notice where I was, who I was with, and the life happening right in front of me.

I left home anxious about going. I came home anxious to go again. Somewhere along the way, I remembered just how much wandering changes me, and maybe that has always been the point.

Blessings Y’all – Amy

The Sunday Scaries

I’ve spent a lot of time lately thinking about the Sunday scaries and wondering why they seem to hit me harder than they used to. It’s a strange phenomenon because nothing has actually happened yet. The work week hasn’t started. No difficult conversations have occurred. No crises have landed in my inbox. And yet, sometime on Sunday afternoon, I can feel my body begin preparing for battle.

My shoulders tighten first. Then comes the restlessness. I’ll find myself unable to fully enjoy whatever I’m doing because my mind has already left the weekend and started living in Monday. By Sunday evening, my thoughts are racing ahead through the entire week, trying to anticipate every possible problem that could arise. A difficult meeting becomes a catastrophe. A simple conversation becomes a confrontation. A challenge becomes a disaster before it has even had a chance to exist.

What fascinates me is how convincing these fears feel in the moment. As I lie in bed staring at the ceiling, unable to sleep, every worry seems completely reasonable. My brain presents each one as an urgent issue that requires immediate attention. Surely if I think about it long enough, I can solve it before it happens. Surely if I prepare for every possible outcome, I can somehow protect myself from disappointment, stress, or conflict.

The problem is that by the time Monday arrives, I’ve often lived through the week once already. I’ve attended the meetings in my head. I’ve had the arguments. I’ve received the criticism. I’ve rehearsed the failures. My body responds as though these things have already happened, even though they exist only in the stories my mind has created.

I’ve often heard people say that anxiety is worrying about things that will probably never happen. While there is certainly truth in that, I’ve realized that explanation has never fully resonated with me. Part of what makes the Sunday scaries so difficult is that life has taught me that not every fear is irrational.

There have been moments in my life when the thing I was worried about actually happened. There have been phone calls I didn’t want to answer, conversations I dreaded having, and losses I desperately hoped I could somehow avoid. Some of the hardest chapters of my life arrived after periods of knowing they might be coming. When you’ve lived through enough heartbreak, enough uncertainty, and enough grief, your brain begins to believe that its job is to stay one step ahead of pain.

Looking back, I can see how that survival instinct developed. If I can anticipate every possible outcome, maybe I won’t be blindsided. If I can identify every risk, maybe I can prevent disaster. If I stay alert enough, perhaps I can keep the people I love safe and protect myself from being hurt again.

The problem is that a mind trained to watch for genuine threats doesn’t always know the difference between a life-changing crisis and an ordinary Monday morning. It responds to an upcoming meeting with the same vigilance it once reserved for truly difficult seasons. It treats uncertainty as danger. It mistakes worry for preparation and anxiety for control.

What I’ve started to understand is that my Sunday scaries aren’t really about the week ahead. They’re about my relationship with uncertainty. They are the result of a mind that desperately wants guarantees in a world that refuses to provide them.

The irony is that all those hours spent worrying never actually give me what I’m looking for. They don’t make me more prepared. They don’t eliminate risk. They don’t provide certainty. They simply rob me of the one thing I actually possess in that moment, which is the Sunday evening sitting right in front of me.

While anxiety constantly reminds me that difficult things are possible, experience has taught me something equally important. I’ve survived every difficult season that has come my way. I’ve survived grief. I’ve survived loss. I’ve survived disappointment, uncertainty, conflict, and change. Not because I successfully predicted every outcome, but because when life demanded something of me, I found a way through it.

Maybe that’s the lesson I’m slowly learning.

The goal isn’t to convince myself that nothing bad will ever happen. Life has already proven otherwise. The goal is to trust myself enough to know that whatever happens, I will deal with it when it arrives. I don’t need to carry the entire week before it begins. I don’t need to solve Wednesday’s problems on Sunday evening. I don’t need to sacrifice today’s peace in an attempt to purchase tomorrow’s safety.

The truth is that this moment deserves my attention just as much as whatever waits for me tomorrow. The conversation with my husband. The dog curled up nearby. The last few quiet hours of the weekend. The sunset outside the window. These things are real. The disasters my mind is rehearsing are, for the most part, only possibilities.

Monday will come whether I worry about it or not. The week will unfold in ways I can predict and in ways I can’t. What I can control is whether I spend Sunday evening living the life that is actually happening or preparing for one that may never arrive.

And if experience has taught me anything, it’s this: I am far stronger than my anxiety gives me credit for. The same strength that carried me through the hardest days of my life is still here. I don’t need to spend Sunday night rehearsing every possible disaster to be ready for whatever this week brings.

Blessings Y’all – Amy

The Pressure of Free Time…

There’s a very specific kind of giddiness that comes with a long weekend as an adult. It starts sometime around Thursday afternoon, when you realize there’s an extra day sitting out there waiting for you. By Friday, it feels full of possibility in a way regular weekends never quite do. One extra day somehow tricks your brain into believing you suddenly have time to become fully rested, productive, creative, organized, and caught up on life, friends, and family all at once.

The mental list starts building almost immediately. You’re going to sew. Clean out a closet. Take a nap. Water the plants. Sit outside with a glass of wine and actually relax for once. Maybe read. Maybe organize. Maybe do absolutely nothing for a little while and not feel guilty about it.

But somewhere between all the possibilities and all the pressure we quietly place on ourselves, the long weekend starts feeling less restful and more overwhelming.

At least it’s that way for me.

Because instead of simply enjoying the extra time, my brain starts trying to carefully distribute it. Even now it’s sitting here whirring trying to figure out what I’m going to jump off this chair and get done. If I spend the afternoon sewing, I probably should’ve been productive. If I spend the day cleaning and organizing, I’ll feel disappointed that I never actually rested. If I sit still too long, I start mentally calculating all the things I “should” be doing instead. If I worked a little Monday somehow my week next week won’t be so bad. And somehow having too many choices leaves me oddly stuck, drifting from one thing to another without ever fully settling into any of them.

Then suddenly it’s Monday evening. The weekend is over. The house still isn’t completely done. Half the projects remain untouched. The rest somehow didn’t feel restful enough. And despite having an extra day off, you’re still tired and somehow emotionally unprepared to go back to work.

I think part of the problem is that many of us have forgotten how to let free time simply exist without turning it into another thing to manage well. 🙋🏻‍♀️ We approach long weekends with such high expectations. Surely this is the weekend we’ll finally catch up, recharge, reset, organize life, and become the version of ourselves who has it all together.

But maybe that’s too much pressure to place on a few open days.

The older I get, the more I think the best weekends are rarely the ones where everything gets done. They’re usually the quieter ones. The ones where you laugh a little, rest a little, wander through a project because you want to instead of because you scheduled it, and maybe sit outside at the end of the day with a glass of wine realizing you didn’t maximize every minute… but you lived in some of them.

Maybe the goal of a long weekend was never to fix our exhaustion in the first place. Maybe it was simply meant to give us a little room to breathe.

Blessings Ya’ll – Amy

Balance or Boundaries?

This is a topic we have been exploring in counseling the last couple of visits and one I’ve taken my time with my thoughts before putting it here. Anyone who knows me I struggle with giving anything less than 1000% to everything – almost always at my own detriment. Work is a perfect example. When the counselor found out that I come home, after working all day, and the first thing I do is check my work email when I walk in the door it was a red flag. Same with being tied to the phone over the weekend and when on vacation. I have an unhealthy obsession with email. There. I said it. And coming to terms with that has taken more work than I ever thought it could.

“You can’t have balance without boundaries but you can have boundaries and still be out of balance.”

Let that just sit there for a minute and marinate. What is balance in today’s world? Where is the line between a healthy balance and the attitude of “not my job”? I’m old school – the “40 hours and that’s it” or “not my job” attitude that is so prevalent in most work places makes me slightly insane. Yet – do those people have it right as far as having a healthy work life balance? Is it either black and white or is there a lot of gray somewhere between?

I’ve recently changed my work schedule to allow Tim and I an extra 45 minutes before the alarm goes off. I’ve been at it for three weeks and it still feels like I’m doing something wrong. Like that 45 minutes is shorting work somewhere along the way. And being honest I’ve already slipped into not being as diligent with my end of day out time. But that guilt is still present.

Jumping off of work for a second – what about in relationships? Extracurricular activities? It’s interesting looking back on the kids’ childhood in that light. It came very easily to Fred and I to put boundaries on family time and not fall into the club sports/insane schedule lifestyle that rules so many families today. We felt strongly that (while there are a few exceptions) statistically the chance of a child’s’ post childhood success with any sport or extracurricular was slim while the investment in time with them as a family would have lifelong benefits. Why did that boundary come so easily and without a second thought but all other boundaries I feel like I’m letting someone (everyone) down? Relationship boundaries are very hard for me. Tim comments all the time on those that I keep close despite that offline that make me more than a little nutty – he doesn’t understand it. For him it’s black and white – if you are doing things that make him unhappy/hurt him you aren’t part of his world. I’ve learned a tremendous amount from my mother in law about navigating the world of adult children and their lives and invisible boundaries adult kids put down.

All this to say – where do you have balance in your life and is that because of conscious boundaries you’ve put into place? Where could you use more boundaries to achieve balance? Honestly want to hear thoughts!

Blessings y’all – Amy