Time to Purge

Out with the old, in with the new. I think I’m internalizing that sentiment more this year than ever before. Although I live in Manhattan and had abundant options for an exciting New Year’s Eve, I chose instead to stay home and go through my stuff, intent on tossing a ton of it.

I wanted to start the year off clean, unencumbered by all the crap that I’ve been dragging along through life with me. Of course the crap isn’t really bad stuff, it’s just stuff that I don’t need to haul around anymore. Like magazines I haven’t touched in a year, books I’m not going to read again or ever, the shirt I haven’t worn since college, pens I don’t like to write with, that free coral lipstick I’ll never use, salad dressing I don’t like but kept “just in case,” you get the idea. I can’t believe I’ve been hanging on to so many things (and attitudes) that add little or no value to my life.

A friend told me it sounded like I’m purging. Purging. I like it. Webster’s has several definitions of the term, but the one that fits my present mania reads, “to make free of something unwanted.” It’s exactly what I’m doing, and I haven’t finished. Yesterday I moved on to the kitchen junk drawer and then to my bra and underwear drawers. Out with the old! Nothing is safe or sacred.

Of course, it’s not these things that are really unwanted, but those aspects of my life that are holding me back from living the life I want now. Getting rid of the old is a symbolic way for me to make room for the new. Not new stuff, but new life in my life.

Change is my theme for 2007. I’ve never picked a theme for a year before, just a bunch of goals I never managed to keep past the first week. This year is different in so many ways. This year it’s all about change. And it’s been a long time coming. In fact, the seeds finally hit soil early last year and were nourished in the oddest of places – an online romance writing class. To be more accurate, I guess it didn’t happen in class, but afterward, when a handful of us kept in touch through our Affairs of the Pen group.

The intent of the group was that we’d encourage each other to keep writing, be there to brainstorm ideas, whatever we needed in respect to our writing, but along with that the forum sort of morphed into something much bigger and deeper. The women in the group gave me an opportunity to break out of the mold I’d been stuck in for so long. Out of the roles I’d fallen into with friends and family. With my new writer friends, I could simply be the me I was at the moment. It was so liberating. And it’s had a huge impact on my writing and my life.

They’ve been cheerleaders, critics, muses, friends, and that final affirmation that I can be whatever I chose to be, not what people define me as. Of course, I’m sure I’ll need more reminders of that, but I know they’ll be there to either give me a hug or kick in the butt when needed (albeit online) to get me back on track.

I’m almost done with the purging. I still have to hit the cupboard above the stove and the top drawer of my dresser. After that it’s on to 2007, new opportunities, and mapping out my novel on that huge dry erase board I bought last week. At least I have room for it now.

Happy New Year,
Katrina