It always looks messy. Until it doesn’t.

What progress looks like right before it looks like progress.

Every “Catch Up With The Girls Day” should require bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwiches. And the kind of sugary deliciousness that comes in the form of hot-out-of-the-oven cookies.

Chocolate chip cookies are ideal. But that recipe calls for eggs, which I did not have. And the reason I did not have them is because the supermarket wall of eggs was a total ghost town when I tried to purchase some the night before.

An entire section of the aisle.

Empty boxes with traces of broken egg goo. And nary an egg to be found.

It was weird.

And perhaps some kind of omen?

Except I don’t believe in omens. I believe in signs. And this one told me to put the bar of chocolate back on the shelf because chocolate chip cookies were not happening.

Lucky for me I took home economics in 7th grade.

I don’t know if this was true for you, but 7th grade is basically where I picked up all of my life skills.

• How to type.

• How to curl my hair with a curling iron so it flipped the right way.

• How to light a Bunsen burner without setting my eyebrows on fire.

And, how to make the kind of shortbread cookies that make you moan in ecstasy when they land on your tongue.

No eggs required.

A solid plan B for Girls Day.

Or any day, if we’re being honest.

In fact, since we’re being honest, you should know that there was a time in my life when I was making these shortbreads every day for breakfast.

It was my butter era and it ended when I realized that semi-solid, lightly emulsified, churned cream is not as healthy as it sounds.

Well, I don’t have to tell you that my butter era made me an expert in making these cookies.

I have experience.

I. Can. Execute.

Plop ingredients in a bowl. Mix it all together. This is how you make cookies.

Except on Girls Day Sunday, it felt like I was mixing for a looooong time.

And instead of the dough coming together, it was sort of just getting … crumbly-er.

I started to wonder if I’d screwed up the recipe somehow. I must have added too much flour? Or not enough butter? Because this dough was not coming together. At all.

I was like: What am I doing wrong?

I even stopped mixing for a minute to look deeply into the bowl and ask: What am I doing wrong?

And since I couldn’t think of anything I was doing wrong, I went back to mixing.

And mixing. And mixing. Until all of a sudden, the dough came together. And I was like, Oh yeah…this dough does that.

I was so used to mixing up cookie dough that doughs itself from the first turn of the mixer that I’d forgotten that this shortbread likes to get all messy and hang out all crumbly and piecemeal before it decides what it wants to do with its life. And you have to just keep mixing and be ready because when it comes together, it comes together quick.

I wasn’t doing it wrong.

I was doing it.

Mixing and mixing and mixing is what doing it looks like.

So, you know when you decide you’re going to declutter your closet?

And you start pulling everything out and putting your trousers in one pile and your dresses in another and all of those sweaters in another and just absolutely piling up your bed with clothes?

And then you get your shoes all lined up between the bed and the door to your room. And you’ve started a section over by the window with random socks you found on the closet floor. And you’ve started filling a trash bag with scraps of paper and buttons that you don’t think came off of anything you ever owned.

And speaking of things you never owned, where did all these bobby pins come from? You haven’t had a bobby pin in your hair since your college roommate’s wedding in 1992. And yet.

Here it all is.

The contents of your closet.

All spread out before you, waiting to find out if it will be chosen for your kickball team.

And here you are. Finally ready to do this!

Until you’ve been at it for the better part of a day and honest to gawd you must be doing something wrong because your room is a giant mess and nothing is coming together.

You look up and you’re like: I’m no closer to having cookie dough a closet that makes it easy to get dressed in the morning than when I started.

What am I doing wrong?

Why is this taking so long?

And how is this so much messier now than when I started?

These are questions we all ask ourselves when we’re sitting on the floor in the middle of the room, surrounded by a mess that we made because we thought it’d be a good idea to finally get our closet sorted out so we weren’t down bad crying at the gym every morning thinking about how we were gonna have to go home and wrestle something out of the closet to wear to work.

Here’s what I want you to remember the next time you’re sitting there in your circle of defeat pining for a BLT.

THIS is how you make the shortbread.

THIS is the decluttering process.

It’s messy. And then it’s “too much.” And then it’s “I am making this happen.” And then it’s “OMG this is actually happening!!!” And then you’re putting the finishing touches on your space and living. Your. Life.

You’re not doing it wrong.

You’re doing it.

This is what doing it looks like.

For everyone who is doing it.

Don’t get discouraged because it’s messy right now.

Don’t get discouraged because it all seems like it’s just too much right now.

Don’t get caught up in the fact that nothing seems to be coming together right now.

Keep going after it.

Because in all of my experience helping people downsize and declutter and set up their homes so the life they want to be living feels possible? When it does come together, it comes together fast.

And you will look around and be so amazed at what you have done, what you have made, and all the things that are possible now that didn’t feel possible before you started.

If you’re going through your belongings.

If you’re making decisions about what belongs in your life and what doesn’t.

If the things that don’t make your life better or easier or more lovely are leaving your home.

You’re not doing it wrong. You’re doing it. Carry on.

Your friend with a truly irresponsible number of eyebrows that are not even a little bit intimidated by a Bunsen burner,
Vivian

PS. Need that shortbread recipe from my 7th grade home economics class? Hit reply to this email or send me a DM and say “Gimme the Shortbread” and I’ll email it to you right away. Perhaps you need a butter era of your own?

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When you're overwhelmed and spiraling, here are 3 ways I can help you take back your space:

• Make Space Strategy Session: One calm, strategic hour that’s all about your home, your stuff, and your life. We spend an hour together on Zoom. You’ll show me your space, we’ll talk about what’s happening or not happening or where you’re getting stuck on what to do, and we’ll make a plan to get you on your way. You’ll leave with focused direction, real momentum, and feeling like, “Okay, I’ve got this.“

• Date Night: Ongoing 1:1 support to help you get your whole home in order. Bit by bit. Week by week. Until you can breathe when you walk in the door. Through my Reset Everything Framework, we’ll do this together. One room at a time, one category at a time, one decision at a time. No shame. No pressure. No judgment. And I won’t let you burn out or give up along the way.

• The One-Day Sprint: Slow and steady isn’t your style? You’re a “let’s jump start this whole process” or you’re in a “I just want to get this one space, one category, one zone done-done so I can stop obsessing about it”mood? You’re a sprinter. So let’s spend an entire day together over Zoom and get that thing out of “someday” and into “done (or very, very close).”

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