In a box, on the shelf, in the closet...

Motivation has not been my core darling little trait lately. It's been more of a long lost friend. A friend whose number, address and memory I've seem to forgotten. There were two reasons I moved home. The main reason was to take care of myself. I officially hit rock bottom. I got so good at denying what really happened to my dad, that I didn't go through the grieving. I thought about what I wanted for my life, and depression was not it. What kind of wife and mom would I be if I went into a marriage and family I created with emotional baggage, and never having dealt with the death of my dad. I've never believed in the grieving process. My thought was..."well, put a smile on, fake it till you make it, and just kinda keep yourself busy till you get over it." I was laying in bed in Utah, and suddenly I asked myself "Well, how's that working for you Nicole?"

I threw off my blankets, called my mom and packed.

A couple days after I came home, I received a text from someone I was no longer friends with saying "So, I heard you packed up, ran home and ran away?"

For a split second I was hurt. And then I smiled and said to myself, "YEP!" I ran away from not dealing with my issues, and decided to confront them head on. Staying in Utah would have been the easy thing to do. It would have allowed me to waste away, not make anything of myself, not grow, and not deal with my new reality.

I allowed myself to feel my authentic feelings. If I was going to do this, there was no faking emotion. If I wasn't happy, I wasn't going to fake a smile. If I needed to stay in bed for a day, it was a good thing I had a comfortable mattress. I could tell my family was starting to worry about me. I reassured them that I knew what I was doing, and to give me time. Slowly, I have started to become myself again. I'm starting to be productive again. I feel like the ball is rolling, and it feels amazing.

Needless to say, I came home to a very full house, with really no room for my 7 huge Fed Ex boxes, and car load of my stuff. My patient mom has let me store my stuff in hallways, the kitchen, the family room, dining room table...I even have clothes hanging on the treadmill.

Little by little I've started unravelling my life in Utah, and making a new home for it in California. Today I took everything out of my closet, and put it all over my bed. As a self confirmed sentimental pack rat, I keep everythingggg. Everything has a memory. My things are my friends. Not in a padded white room sort of way, but they remind me of my childhood, of people, or certain memories. As I was looking at all my stuff, I thought of my dad. None of this "stuff" was going to bring him back. Sure there are things I will keep forever, that are treasures, that I'll never get rid of. But the other things were just tangible objects. The most precious things my dad gave me are the memories. Those are things that I will always have. They don't fit into boxes. They're so big, they barely fit in my heart. I started throwing everything in one bag, and another bag, and another bag. Pretty soon I had transformed a closet full of stuff into one storage box full of keepsakes, 5 huge trash bags full of donations, and 2 huge black trash cans full of unnecessary objects. I was free. I was rational. I was cleansed. Moving home has allowed me less distractions from life, and more room for growth. Cleaning my environment has allowed me less chaos from "things", and more opportunities to call upon memories, and to make some new ones as well. I closed the door to something good, and opened the door to something even better.