Eureka

I joke about my "crap" room a lot. It is the former nursery in my house. After my babies were too big for the beautiful round cherry crib and the yellow and blue walls, I painted it baby blue with lime green and black accents and a puppy border for little Spencer, who loved "gogs" more than anything. And then we moved to California.

When we came back we had 3 boys who wanted to share the space upstairs -- it's a bedroom and a large play area with slanty ceilings and a cozy feel to it.

So I turned the nursery into a craft room. I painted it periwinkle, I ripped out the carpet to reveal hardwood floors that needed refinishing. No problem, since I paint and generally make messes in here. Someone else can refinish them later -- right now they are perfect for me.

And I use this room every day. My oak rolltop desk is in here, the piece of furniture I most love. The first CD player I bought, so old that it can't play CDs burned on the computer because it can't read the format. My Silhouette and my scanner sit on the desk. My sewing machine is here, and the Expedit-style white shelving Rob built for me while we lived in California. There is a triptych of Bruce in black and white above the desk, pictures of my husband and kids, gifts from my mom and grandma, a stone that says, "Create" on it that I lifted from Kris's bedroom shelves.

But with all that use the room does get pretty messy. It was awful yesterday -- so awful that instead of looking forward to spending time in here and working on Jessie's Circle Journal, I was dreading it. I couldn't find anything, stuff was lost among piles of junk, and I decided this was it. Something had to be done.

Here are the before photos.





Yeah, I know. I was overwhelmed. But the good thing is I have a place for just about everything in here -- I just had to get each item to where it belonged. And after a few hours, a full trash bag, a full recycling bag, a good dusting and vacuuming, and a lot of MPR, this is what I ended up with:





Now I know it's not the biggest thing ever, but this is pretty significant to me. I have been unable to do this for months. It has bugged me, I have fretted about it, but I couldn't DO anything about it. And yesterday, I did.

On November 12 I lost part of who I was. Part of me is gone, and like a missing limb, it aches and I will forever be aware that I am not the same. But I am figuring out the big question I was left with: how do I go on in a world where she is not? It's not the same -- it won't ever be. But somehow I am figuring out how to live even though I am broken. I am moving through grief; I swim in it every minute. But I am not drowning. I struggle on; I gasp for air; I live.