It's always late at night when that moment hits me - the "I need to write about this" moment.
There are a few pieces to this story - I'll try to put it together without rambling.
The piece that started it all - Marie Kondo tidies up my life. I checked the book, Tidying Up, from the library when it first came out. I never read it. I've realized when it comes to books like that - the ones that can be life-changing - I tend to think about reading without actually doing it. I think I have it in my head that once I read them, I might actually have to do something about it. That's out of my comfort zone. So, I continue to check them out from the library and they continue to sit on our library shelf in my front room until I run out of renewals. This was such a book. But then she came to Netflix. Netflix, I can do - it's sort of the root of this post, but I'll get to that. I binge-watched the show and to say it was life-changing would be an understatement. I began mentally (and physically) going through my house, decluttering all the things that didn't spark joy. It's still a work in progress.
Then something else happened - it occurred to me I needed to declutter my mind, too. There are many things I've been clinging to that certainly don't spark joy. Habits, thoughts, ideas, even people. I tried explaining the process to a friend, once: Imagine a fish tank. Typically, they're filled with colorful things and are very pleasing to the eyes. If you've ever owned one, though, you know this can be deceiving. When you rustle up the rocks on the bottom, all the sediment gets disturbed and starts mucking up the water. It's crap (literally) you didn't even realize was there. Marie Kondo did that to my brain - she rustled up my rocks. I started doing some soul-searching and self-evaluating. This process simultaneously almost ended and essentially saved my marriage. (Seriously, life-changing.) My rocks needed to be rustled. My brain-water needed to be super cleaned of all the crap that had been lying around for too many years. It's been an exhausting but necessary process. Also, still a work in progress.
In my mental decluttering, I've come to see that I'm stuck. My life is a pattern of nothingness, kind of like a crib mobile that doesn't ever get anywhere; it just keeps going in the same futile direction. Yesterday, after a day of being in a rotten mood, I realized this even more keenly than I ever have. I took it to the temple with me, last night, and prayed for guidance. I prayed for whatever it is I need to break free of this go-nowhere-makes-me-feel-rotten pattern. I had an inkling what might be adding to my fruitless existence.
This brings me to the Netflix piece of my story. Lately, I've been watching a lot of Netflix. Like, a lot. And by lately, I mean for months. I work from home and don't always have a lot of work to do so I've been filling my time with binge-watching. Netflix has been there for me when I needed it. It was one of my few happy thoughts when I was struggling with postpartum depression after Owen was born. My in-laws had just introduced it to us and I loved it. It provided a mental escape from the ugliness I faced every waking moment for so long after his birth. It was something normal and, oh, how I needed normal in my life at that time. It was a safe distraction from the thoughts of anguish and despair that clouded my days. It was one of the few things that didn't make me feel worse.
These days, though, I find myself thinking of my cleverly coined phrase, "Numbing with Netflix" because lately (and by lately, I mean for years), I haven't been loving my life. Netflix has been my escape. I could avoid the mess that's been in my home and in my mind by immersing myself in the fictional lives of others. I could forget about the crud building up on the bottom of my fish tank as long as I was watching Netflix.
I feel like my tank-cleaning growth of late was feeling stifled, hence my feeling rotten, yesterday. I've been decluttering in all these other areas but have still been keeping the same unhealthy pattern that Netflix had become, a pattern I didn't know how to break free from.
In my bedtime prayer, tonight, I followed up on my pleas uttered when I was at the temple. How do I break free? My answer came.
I need to Marie Kondo that b- ... I mean, I need to let it go. I need to say thank you to Netflix for being there for me, for serving its purpose when I so desperately needed it, and I need to let it go. It's no longer needed and has become unnecessary clutter that leaves little room for progress, and frankly, I'm progressing more than I ever have these days. I need the room.
