51. Awareness

Today I am nurturing my gratitude for awareness, as I just scoured my apartment looking for my birth certificate. I have had issues with packing for a while, back to my good old college days that followed me through my travel to Taiwan, my relationship, and my move to where we currently live. I used to get angry while packing or looking for something, swearing that I will get my act together and clean this time, and declutter/organize certain aspects of my life. Other things always took priority, until I had my child and wondered if this clutter/mini-hoarder of a household is the kind of environment I want my child to grow up in. Of course, I also realized we had a serious problem when other people gently commented on whether we had just moved, that we had lots of boxes, or that we had lots of stuff. You know something is not right when you are too embarrassed to invite people over because of clutter, or when you see your son being so much happier in somebody else's spacious home. And sometimes it takes looking through another person's box of cassettes and floppy disks  to realize that perhaps I am unlikely to read through my stacks of papers in the next few years, and that I need to devote time to decluttering, and most of all, let go of the past. I thank awareness today because instead of being angry, or saying that I will get things done in the future, today I feel genuinely sad, as I realize I have a problem on my hands that I need to address, that life cannot go on in this mini-hoarder fashion, for myself or for my child. Awareness, acceptance, and a willingness to change are the first steps to enacting that change. Being angry at oneself or somebody else for their clutter is unhelpful-as a parent and person I can guide my own and my child's change/needs, but I cannot change another adult's viewpoint. By the same token, there comes a time when one needs to step back and evaluate how much one can continue to put up with or compensate for. At the end of the day, we are all responsible for our own actions, and the consequences that follow, good or bad. Of course, the exception comes with children, and even though some adults want to revert to that childhood state, well, childhood comes once, and then with adulthood comes a time to let go of the past and embrace adulthood for what it is, a life of responsibility, routine, and accountability. Same with parenthood -a time to embrace the joys and challenges that come with having a child and to leave behind a life of adulthood without child. I am glad that I have the awareness and courage to sometimes see things for what they are, for some people do not even have that insight, or are too scared to face the possibility of such. I hope I can instill a similar sense of awareness and humility in my child...