What do you do? (Let Go · Frou Frou)

     I met someone new yesterday.  As grown ups we don't meet people often.  I was asked about myself.  I realized as I was answering I sounded like a hot mess.  Just simply talking about my current state of life...I sounded so lost.  I didn't mean to and I certainly wasn't being a Debbie Downer...it was just life at this point.  I went about my business with little whispers in my head.
    Analyzing life is what I do these days.  Some people scrapbook or take photos.  Some people golf or read.  I analyze.  I look at choices and decisions and wonder what I could have done differently.  I wonder about the yesterday, the today and the tomorrow of it all.  I hush myself.  I watch the sunny hills as I drive through country roads.  I listen to the faint strings in the background of a song I have heard a million times.  I look to make old things new and new things old.  I try.  But when someone just asks what you are or what you do...there it all is.  I don't know what I'm doing right now.  It's that simple.  I also heard myself say something about how hard it was not knowing when I am such a typical overachiever. 
     But the truth is I have been enjoying this new journey.  When you watch a hoarder show and they bring in the big guns...the organizing freaks who kick ass...what do they do?  They take the room that needs to be fixed and EMPTY it.  They sort what they are keeping in a pile.  They decide what they are donating.  There is always a huge pile of things they are dumping.  Then they find out what the person wants and needs in that room.  They design it with colors and accessories that will make them happier.  They organize it.  They create systems that will help the person to maintain the scary new thing that they are doing.  Well I am doing all of it.  I am the hoarder.  I have everything that has ever happened to me all trapped in my brain.  It has been taking up space...prime real estate.  I am the sweeper who is coming in to help me purge.  I am the designer of the new space.  I am the person who will be living in the new place that is created.  I am the one taking the stuff to the dump or donating it.  I am giving away what is no longer necessary. 
     All other methods have proven unsuccessful.  Little bits and pieces of things still left to linger.  I have taken my arm and swept all contents of the table onto the floor.  Swooooosh.  One giant push.  I am now sitting on the floor and digging through the piles with a garbage can nearby.  The walls are white and bare.  The floor is unfinished.  The blank space can be quite overwhelming.  It is why people hire designers who are trained just for that purpose.  But lately I am deciding what will make the cut.  There are colors to be picked and furniture to be moved.  There might be some artwork that needs to go up.  I will pick and search for things that will make me happy in this room.  This room that is me.  My life.
     So yes...I don't know what I am or what I do at the moment.  I am new.  I am different.  If it didn't work for 38 years it needs to go.  If it wasn't my voice it needs to be quieted.  If it is no longer my taste it can be changed.  I will spend each day cleaning, searching and finding until my room is a nice place to lay my head at night.   It might be a bit time consuming spending all of this energy in finding me but something tells me it will all be quite worth it.  So when you ask what I am or what I do...I might say "I don't know" but somewhere in there is the biggest irony yet...I never really did know.  All of that time I was actually floating around lost.  Now when I say "I don't know" it's a good thing.  Now I am aware of it all and maybe just maybe can start to find my way to being found.