Dealing with the disarray
After the party comes the clean up
Dear Afterpartiers,
My Shrine of Disarray has really lived up to its name.
About two months ago I cleared off a side table in my bedroom and turned it into my Shrine of Disarray: a space to hold the varied relics of my back-to-back travels as I unpacked and repacked in between.
I knew I wouldn’t have time to properly “put away” the emotions of each trip before ramping up for the next one. Now I am finally back home, and as I try to pick up my normal life rhythm again, I really feel how the accumulated miscellany has become an externalized metaphor for my soupy state of mind.
I know if I want to clear my head, I have to clear this table.
There are layers here. On the surface there’s a box of my business cards, a bright orange branded bucket hat, a stack of bachelorette-themed cocktail napkins (not what you’re thinking), a playbill, postcards, a bottle of hotel lotion, effervescent electrolyte tablets, and a pointed black witch hat with gold glitter writing on the brim. I excavate below and rediscover journals, light up pins shaped like hearts and stars, wristbands, lanyards, band-aids, a clipboard, a condom wrapped with the logo of a nightclub, earplugs, printed handouts, a cooling neck towel, more business cards, more branded swag (charging adapters, a fanny pack, plastic sunglasses, a scrunchie), and a $5 gift card to a coffee chain I never visit.
This was an experiment in dealing with objects. One of my take-aways is… I probably needed a bigger table. But it’s pretty unusual (for me) to have so many back to back trips. If I had only needed to accommodate one or two rounds of unpacking, it could have been perfect.
It really was comforting to return from my first trip and see the conspicuously empty table, ready to receive whatever I could not hold in my exhaustion. I think I literally sighed in relief. I thanked my past self for making room.
After that, coming home to a table that was progressively messier didn’t have quite the same effect. It’s not exactly a bad thing. It was not comforting, but it was true: I had a growing backlog of experiences to process. And there it was.
As I’ve been writing this post, I’ve chipped away at cleaning up. I’m not done yet, but it feels like the fog is thinning. I think this is just the start of a longer, unhurried journey to weave some sense out of the last two months.
I just have to clear the mental space for it first.
How’s your summer going? Any exciting events on the horizon, or already in the rear view mirror? Big transitions? Little joys? Hope it’s all going great.
“I thanked my past self for making room.” Love this, Syd!