Aaahhhh…. It’s that time of year  – The new year. Fresh starts, new leafs, clean slates. For so many, it brings celebrations complete with fireworks, champagne, and general overindulgence. For others, it is feasts of black-eyed peas and other lucky foods, and time spent with family. All different kinds of traditions all over the world. But for me, the new year means one thing…

REORGANIZING!

I love sorting things and getting them all settled into an orderly fashion. I like little drawers and buckets and boxes and new coat hangers. And i LOVE getting to throw away things that do nothing but clutter my space. To my way of thinking, it is best not to bring last year’s garbage into the new year. The coming year will have plenty trash of its own.

Yes, yes… I know that if i were a better woman, i’d have thrown all the crap away as it appeared and not waited til the day i hung the new calendar. But i’m not. And i didn’t.

No one has ever accused me of being Nellie the Neat Freak.

So this time, every year, i go thru the house with bags to hold the garbage and bags to go to charity. I clear everything out that needs to go. Expired medicines and makeup. Clothing i hate or haven’t worn in a year. Accumulated magazines. Any Tupperware without a lid. And the bags of reuse/recycle items that i had craft ideas for that never panned out. And then i go back through and sort everything into new and better containers. Pretty baskets, decorator boxes, expandable shelves… You get the idea. By the second week of January, i am Martha Stewart’s rightful heir.

Come next season, it’s all right back to Clutter Central.

Throughout the year i will go back through and do a smaller version of the purge, but nothing like the High Baptism of the New Year’s Shedding of the Past Year’s Shit.

Seriously – This New Year’s ritual is my own personal day of rebirth.

For the record, i make no resolutions other than the one i always do – To be a bit better this coming year than the last. And each year, the cleansing of my house and head last a a bit longer than the one before. (Nothing like a resolution that you can keep!) It’s unlikely i’ll live long enough for the organization to last all year. I’ll keep doing my best and falling short, and the Grim Reaper will be tripping over stacks of books and craft supplies the day he comes to find me.

Unless the Hindus and Buddhists are right, in which case, i will die on December 31st of the year i finally keep my closet in order for a full 12 months.

At my current rate of improvement, that should put me somewhere around 200 years old when i finally leave this Earth.

This year’s purge is a little more complex, as i am starting to double down and really work on the house as a structure. I have lots of big plans for my little beach cottage in the woods… And the funding to complete about a third of it in the coming year. Not ideal, but it’s a start. And because i have all these plans that might actually come to fruition, i’ve had to cull even more than usual. Because trying to rehab a house that’s full of excess crap is like decorating a Christmas tree with green bows… Unhelpful and unnoticeable.

Anyway, the point of all this housecleaning is that it becomes symbolic – As my house is, so is my head. By clearing all the cobwebs, dustbunnies, and unused hand lotion samples; i am clearing my head of the same. Unused hand lotion samples become any leftover grudges and head smacks as they hit the trash bin. Dustbunnies become those things that i beat myself for daily, even tho they’ve been under the couch so long that everyone has forgotten them but me. And the cobwebs become… Well, truthfully, they’re just cobwebs. And the older i get, the more of a pain in the ass they are in both my house and my brain.

So here’s to those of us who shun parties in favor of self-improvement. While it’s true that we may not get to keep our OCD award for more than a month or two, we are setting ourselves up to start the year with a literal clean slate. Well, if we have a slate. I don’t. I’ll be starting with a clean closet. But i don’t think there’s a euphemism about closets that applies in this situation. Although i suppose it could to someone else. If they cleaned their closet and then came out of it. I think. Maybe. But being in the closet when there’s already so much clutter in there… I can’t imagine.

And there i go, weaving another cobweb.

No matter how you celebrate the new year, i hope it starts you off right: With Love, Light, and Laughter, and faith in a year that is better than the last. I wish you all the sweet things that life has to offer… And just enough salt to remember how sweet the good stuff is. And i wish you a rebirth and the chance to make yourself all you can be… Even if you fall short and there are still dustbunnies under the couch, your effort is not in vain. Any bag of garbage that makes it to the curb is a good thing, both literally and figuratively.

Let the purge begin.