Clearing Clutter, Dealing with Grief

Spring Courtright
Oct 9, 2023
2 min read

Updated: Jan 27

Let’s stop worrying so much about what clutter means and just do what it takes to clear it so we can find our lives underneath.

I was going to write about using microbursts to declutter, but this came to me instead...

Grief is the beast that sneaks up from underneath the layers of daily life and BAM! slams us to the ground, takes our breath away when we’re busy doing something else.

Grief is what lands us in the parking lot-bedroom-car-bathroom-kitchen-basement-anywhere with our head in our hands wondering where all this ache came from.

Grief is the sneaker wave that comes out of nowhere and knocks us to our knees in what was calm seas a moment ago.

Grief is the memory buried in the bottom of the drawer, locked behind the basement door, tucked under the corner pile of things on the floor.

Today, after a sunny afternoon of play, while minding my own business listening to music, the empty seat beside me was suddenly missing someone specific - my Mum - and in about one second it was too much to sit still.

I barely made it outside before the tears flowed down and then I barely made it to the dark spot in the parking lot before the sobs took me down to the ground.

This is a year and a half in, and I hear this isn’t anywhere near the end.

After the tears were gone and the smiles were back, after the claps were clapped and the hugs were given, I drove home and a song from the past (Shawn Colvin’s Steady On) took me to other years... And I remembered things that feel more important than clutter…

I remembered: It’s ok to feel. It’s ok to love. it’s ok to hurt. It’s ok to be however we are in this moment.

It feels momentous to be alive to feel and to love and to hurt and to be ok - to be fully in this moment, not not running away.

Let’s not run away anymore. Let’s run toward. Let’s run toward and through and past and beyond and see what beauty lies in wait for us there.

Let’s stop worrying so much about what clutter means and just do what it takes to clear it so we can find our lives underneath…

Where we can connect and love and feel and live fully before this time with these people here - these beautiful people RIGHT HERE around us, these beautiful people right here inside us - before they’re gone. With Love and Light to You and Yours,

Spring