Hidden Things In The Closet

   I've spent part of today cleaning. So much fun, right? As I was dealing with laundry I opened my closets to once again see a mess of things on the floor. That mess of things is pieces from 26 years of my life. 26 years!
    That's the 26 years that I put behind me. 26 years of going to church, 26 years of constantly living to please everyone else, my 7 year marriage, 26 years of depression and some of the junk I collected throughout that time.
   You see I'm ashamed to say that during my life my bedroom and my house they looked like my closets. They say that the cleanliness of your home reflects how you feel on the inside well for 26 years I was miserable and depressed. Now anyone who has been in my apartment can tell you that I keep it clean. Not to say there's never dishes in the sink, clutter on my end table, or maybe some clothes on my floor, but it's not what I would call unclean just a bit lived in. However despite all that cleanliness if someone were to open up my closets they'd see a mess. Do you see the parallel yet? My home just like my mind has closed off places (and so does yours). Places I don't want to deal with. I've been holding onto junk that represents a life I walked away from because it's to hard to go through it. In that stuff there's anger, bitterness, sadness, depression, oppression, that constant nagging that I've let people down, and a lot of darkness. Seeing that stuff today made me cry because all that junk holds memories, painful memories.
   I bagged up the church clothes and all the clutter of things clothes related that my ex-husband may have had anything to do with. Other than a few choice items I've gotten rid of my whole wardrobe and bought new.
    Cleaning out those "closets" in your mind (and in your home) takes time. Sometimes we forget we have them. It's a door you walk past several times a day, but it's not open so you just forget, but when you open that door and see the mess... emotions flood out of no where.
   There are past hurts and pain that will forever leave me insecure in some areas and because of it I've thrown those things in a closet and hoped to God I'd forget and that one day it'd just work itself out, but it won't. It's time to go through the clutter both in my closets in my room and the closets in my mind. It's a depressing place. It's a place that, I kid you not, I was working the drive thru window middle of winter and it didn't feel cold because at that point I was more of a cold hearted bitch than winter was. When I say that area of my life was dark I'm in no way joking. I HATED my now ex-husband, parents, church and God.  I hated my ex for how he treated me and because he wouldn't change. I hated my parents for not helping me out my marriage when they knew I was miserable. I hated the church because I knew how I'd be judged for how I felt and what I wanted to do. I hated God because he wouldn't answer my prayers. And I hated them all for how my decision was going to hurt them. I hated my ex so much that I prayed he'd either cheat, hit me, or die and I really didn't care which so long as it got me out of my marriage and kept people from judging me.. yeah, I got dark. Then after the separation I had another devastating blow and for the first time in my life I could say I wanted to die. I pictured car accidents or whatever and I cried because how unlike me that was. I was scared of who I was becoming. But all that pain and all that fear forced me to do what I needed to do. As I said I'm happy now, not that I don't have some depressed days, but on average I'm quite happy... But going through this stuff hurts more than I can say.
   You may wonder how I got out of that depression and darkness, that's easy, love. Sometimes other people's love is the only thing that helps us learn to love ourselves and the only thing that helps us through those dark and difficult times. It's in these times that we find out who our true friends and family are. The love they showed me in my dark time is the reason I call them my Loves. Just like them I'm not scared to love people in their darkest time because 1. I love them 2. That's when they need it most and 3. At least there's no question what dark and depressing times looks like on them you don't know someone until you've seen them at their darkest...