They 100% Lost the Plot

When Christmas pageants (and your belongings) go rogue.

It started at the creation of the world.

Which is an unconventional place for a Christmas Pageant to begin. But it was Christmas Eve 2016, I was in Vietnam, and nothing about the past couple of months was what I would have called “normal.”

So I settled into my red, plastic stool in the courtyard of the church and sent up a prayer that the rain would hold off for however long it was going to take us to get from “let there be light!” to the little town of Bethlehem.

Hours. It took us hours.

Because this was a tour of eras that even Taylor Swift would have been impressed by. I mean, there was a snake in a garden and Moses parted the Red Sea and young David killed a giant with a slingshot. There was a flood and a burning bush and some stuff in between that I didn’t quite catch.

But then an angel appeared to a young Mary who discreetly shoved a pillow under her dress and crossed the stage on a water buffalo while a star appeared in the East. And just like that, a child is born and a thousand Vietnamese children started filing onto the stage.

You could feel the wonder and joy.

But then they held up the Baby Jesus for all of us to see and he was not dressed in swaddling clothes. Nope. He was wearing a red cap with white fur trim.

And I was like … is that…? … right as the children (who I thought were going to be angels, but now I see were actually elves) started singing Jingle Bells.

And then I thought … this story seems to have lost the plot.

Which may be exactly what you think every time you walk into your home and look around at all of the stuff you’ve accumulated over the years.

The story of your life is in there somewhere, but what you’re seeing right now? Is a bit … confusing.

To be sure, some of that stuff you’re seeing is junk: Random receipts and old electricity bills and quotes for the new windows you were going to have installed but then didn’t.

But there are a lot of other things in there too. Things that remind you of where you’ve been; things that came from relationships that meant something to you; things that reveal your core values.

None of those things are “junk.” But some of those things don’t really make sense in your Nativity Play.

I believe that our homes should tell the story of our lives. 100%. But our home doesn’t have to be a Museum of Everything in order to do that.

I’d bet a thousand grilled cheese sandwiches that you don’t want to live in a home that feels like “An Encyclopedic History of The World According to (Insert Your Name Here)” or “A Catalog of Days In the Life of (Insert Your Name Here).”

You want to live in a home that feels like this version of You lives there. The version who is bold and smart and kind and totally crushing it, but just so tired of fighting with her belongings all the freakin’ time.

If our belongings tell the story of our life, it sucks to come home and feel like perhaps we’ve lost the plot.

And it really sucks to come home and feel stuck in a story you aren’t loving and think, “How did I end up here?”

I’ll tell you how most of my clients ended up here.

They got busy with work. With taking care of ailing parents. With rearranging their heart and their ex’s belongings after the love affair was declared “officially” finished.

They inherited things they didn’t have the emotional or mental bandwidth to figure out what to do with.

They got used to buying everything online during COVID and the fear of not having toilet paper got into their head so they’re bulk buying everything on auto-refill these days.

And the world got complicated and exhausting and they told themselves they’d deal with it when they had more time and energy and gumption. When things calmed down a bit. When the hurt wasn’t so fresh and the wounds weren’t so raw and the weekends weren’t so heartbreakingly lonely.

Unless our home is being destroyed, nothing happening inside them feels urgent.

Because home will always be there, waiting for us.

This is grace.

Until it isn’t. Until coming home feels less like a gift and more like a battlefield.

To be clear, we’re not talking about a messy week or a month where things got a little out of control. You’re not losing sleep or doing permanent damage to your self-esteem over a situation that just needs a tidy-up.

But if you’re avoiding being at home because it’s seriously starting to mess with your well-being?

Then this is what you need to know:

• You are not the only one with a home that feels like it’s headed in a direction you didn’t expect.

• You are (probably) not a hoarder. Don’t subconsciously give yourself a label that doesn’t fit.

• You don’t have to move into a bigger place. And you’re right if you think that moving won’t actually help anyway. It won’t.

• You don’t need to get rid of everything.

• But you are holding tight to things that are just taking up space for no reason. And you need to get rid of those things in order to make space for the life you want to be living.

• Downsizing, decluttering and making space in your home is going to be hard work. But it will not be as hard as you think it’s going to be.

• It is going to be messy. And it’s going to look worse before it looks better. But that’s not you failing. That’s part of the normal process.

• You do have time to do it.

• You deserve to do it.

• It’s OK (and totally normal) to feel overwhelmed when you start. So that you will not feel overwhelmed when you’re done.

And this: There is only one way to walk to the end of the world. One step at a time.

You can do this.

If you can’t take it one minute longer, you can absolutely go all in and all out and reset everything in your home in one super focused, rip the band-aid off, gut job of a week.

Or you can chip away at it an hour or two a week until you have transformed your space into a home that feels like a place you want to be in.

You can have a home that you feel proud of. Without wandering too far into a side-plot.

Your only friend who has seen the birth of the Baby Santa Jesus,
Vivian

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PS. If finally dealing with your belongings feels overwhelming and you have no idea where to start, I can help you stop spinning.

Spend an hour with me over Zoom and we will:

• Talk about what’s really happening in your home (and in your life).

• Create a downsizing and decluttering strategy for your space (that is do-able).

• Map out the exact first steps, in the right order, so you know where to start and what to do next.

So you can stop fighting with your stuff, be proud of where you live, and get your story back on track.