Make Space

“Mom, you really need new furniture! Dale received a bonus check last week, let us buy you a new couch, and maybe a new chair too,” Sarah exclaimed, as she sat down in her mom’s living room.

Nelly looked around her well loved, but worn home. She was proud of her house. She raised three boys, and one daughter in that three bedroom, one bath ranch, and spent over fifty very happy years with their dad and her sweetheart there. But when Ray passed away five years ago, she just didn’t care so much about what looked like what, including herself, and most of all not her furniture.

The plaid couch, although out of style, was where she used to give Ray his nighttime coffee. When he got sick, he would sit there and she would cover him with his favorite blanket, give him his pills and they would talk about their younger days, and laugh and smile. That brown couch was where Ray took his last breath. Sarah didn’t know it, but every night, Nelly would curl up on the eyesore of the itchy sofa and pretend that she could still hear Ray breathing, smell his soap and sometimes, well, sometimes she thought she could feel him touch her arm.

“I don’t need anything new, honey. I don’t get company except for you and the kids, and I am comfortable.”

Sarah sighed. She’d seen her mom fade after her dad passed away, and although her house wasn’t dirty, it was messy, which was highly unusual for her mom’s personality. She knew it was depression, grief and sadness, but she wanted to help. Sarah followed her mom into the kitchen to help fix some hot tea.

“And look at this refrigerator, mom! This Christmas card is three years old!” Sarah took a photo off marked with Merry Christmas 2000 on it and tossed it in the trash.

“Oh, is it?” Nelly said, absently, while putting two cinnamon tea bags into the tea cups.

“Leaving things like this won’t bring dad back, ya know? What it’s doing is taking up room for new things to happen. You, yourself, used to say that we needed to leave room in our hearts for God to fill it with the good. Do you think you deserve bad?”

Nelly choked back the tears and quickly changed the subject to Sarah’s work. Sarah knew her mom well enough to know when to drop a sore subject.

When dusk fell that evening, Nelly crawled on to the couch with Ray’s blanket wrapped tight around her. I don’t know if I deserve anything good to fill my heart, she cried. How could I possibly deserve more good than what I had? Oh, sure, not everything had been wonderful, but Nelly always tried to turn it into a positive, that is what Ray loved so much about her. The moment she buried her husband, she buried her will to see things in a positive light. She filled her heart space up with sadness and grief. As she pondered it all, she felt Ray softly touch her arm and heard him say, make space, Nel, make space.

She cried herself to sleep on the couch that night, wishing and hoping that the last five years had just been an awful nightmare.

The next morning she woke up stiff, but feeling a bit lighter, a bit freer. As she made her morning tea, she looked at the cluttered refrigerator and little by little began to organize the menus, photos, and past due bills into a pile to either file or pitch. She took a dish rag and wiped down the refrigerator door, horrified at the dust and dirt, and with fresh eyes looked around at her space to see – there just was none. She spent the rest of the day, throwing out old newspapers, food, junk mail and the like. And as she sat down on the couch, she called Sarah.

“I heard what you said yesterday, Sarah, and I understand. I would like to take you up on your offer.”

Before Sarah’s mom could change her mind, she raced over to the house and took her to the furniture store, where they picked out a tasteful (and comfortable) tan couch and recliner chair.

As they placed it in the living room, pushing the old furniture aside, Sarah looked at her mom. “You okay?”

Nelly nodded, and with tears in her eyes, took scissors and carefully began to cut away the material on the couch. Sarah looked on confused. “I am going to wash and then make pillows. Not all old needs to be tossed – there is room for both.”

*****

How can you make space? You don’t have to do it all at once, and it isn’t necessarily just physical, but it can be digital (old emails, texts, Facebook friends that aren’t needed or are negative) and emotional too. It takes baby steps, sometimes a friend by your side helps to put things in perspective, and knowing that not everything needs to be tossed. As everything is energy, even the smallest changes and movements create space.

Once you begin to clear, you will notice your possibilities expanding.

I remember a time when I wanted so badly to leave a certain job, and although I was sending out resumes, there were no other opportunities coming. So I began to clean my office and desk. I removed pictures (things that can ground you to a certain location) and my plants, and organized the office so that when I did receive a job offer, I could pretty much walk out the door. Two days after the cleanse, I received a fabulous job offer. I made space.

The same thing can work for love. If you are opening your closet and looking at your old wedding rings, photo albums, and/or bridal gown and yet wondering where your new romance is – you need to make space. I’m not saying pitch it all, but box it away, and make sure to cut the emotional cords to the past romance so as to make space for the new. Some believe that a new bed helps brings new romance, if the old furniture came from the past relationship. Since beds and mattresses are expensive, you can instead ceremoniously wipe down old energy, and buy new sheets.

So many want to know why this or that isn’t happening their life, and many times it is as simple as they haven’t moved on or made space. I thought this article fit perfectly and although it is a weight loss article, it symbolically makes sense for ridding yourself of the extra weight of (emotional/physical/mental/digital) clutter.

One thing at a time. One small step. That’s all it takes to begin, and soon larger strides will happen which will help you MAKE SPACE.

“You must make a decision that you are going to move on. It won’t happen automatically. You will have to rise up and say, ‘I don’t care how hard this is, I don’t care how disappointed I am, I’m not going to let this get the best of me. I’m moving on with my life.”
― Joel Osteen