Tuesday, December 31, 2013

A New Day

I cleaned my car out recently. It was really an excavation of everything I had accumulated but forgot was there.
Junk piles up quick if you let it. And I did for quite a long time. People who know me aren't shocked by this. They know I can be disorganized. Plus, I'm a journalist. Journalists are supposed to be mad disorganized.
Yep, that's my excuse.
But sometimes, you get tired of seeing the junk so you take an hour or so and just clear things out. Then after it's all said and done, you sit in your car and all of a sudden, you feel a lightness in the emptiness of your car.
You feel good and a smile breaks out on your face.
Besides, you can then see the long view. Take a gander at the mountains and valleys in your path of sight. Figure out how you're going to get from here to there.
Because that's the point. Clear everything out so you can have a clearer view of your life and more importantly, a clearer view of you.
Life moves fast, if we let it. We allow ourselves to be governed by time and appointments and sundry things to do that are on our ever-evolving to-do list.
And the next thing you know, a year has gone by and you still haven't done half of what you said you were going to do. 
Friendships have dissipated. Rain and sunshine have come and gone and you're so bogged down you have forgotten what fresh air feels like.
All because you haven't cleaned out the junk. You can't enjoy the quiet that creates its own music you can dance to.
So I cleaned out my car recently. Trashed the trash. Found some stuff I had forgotten was there. Excavated songs I wanted to learn to sing again.
There's not much you can do about the time you lost. You only have control over the time you have now. Me, I'm looking at mountains and valleys today, trying to find my way from here to there. And the view is pretty beautiful.