Making Space

My husband and I have been putting real effort into transforming our apartment into a space that reflects where we are in our life rather than where we were when we moved in. Last March, we had no choice but to make design and other decisions based first and foremost on my accessibility and health requirements, plus we had limited energy to expend on any house-related task deemed inessential. Not to say that we didn’t do the best with what we had—we did. Now that things have improved so drastically, though, our place no longer needs to be half-home, half-hospital room. Slowly but surely, we’ve been levelling up like a pair of pre-convict Martha Stewarts. (I swear we could host our own HGTV show; in fact, I’ve already come up with a few horrible titles to pitch. For your sake I won’t inflict them on you … yet.)

This has brought and is bringing many rewards, expected and otherwise.

Every week or so, we choose another area to organize and clean, be it a closet, a room, or simply a shelf. We’ve been making smaller improvements, too: my husband optimized the lighting (I was skeptical, but I’m now an enthusiastic convert); we put up more decor, including a clock above our entertainment unit (who’d have thought that I’d so quickly readapt to glancing at a physical timepiece rather than pulling my phone from my purse when I want to know how many hours I’ve wasted embroidering?); and I’ve methodically gone through drawer after drawer.

The whole process had been immensely satisfying. For understandable reasons, lots of our stuff was shoved away when we first moved in, and for the good part of a year, tackling the organization of said stuff seemed overwhelming at best. It was one of those wonderful/horrible “out of sight, out of mind” situations. Our primary living space looked pretty good to a visitor not attempting to peel back the top layer of the metaphorical onion in which we resided, and almost all—well, all, I hope—our friends are too polite to rummage through our front closet or look behind the entertainment unit, so why shatter the illusion of put-togetherness by revealing the chaos lurking behind the protective shield of a closet door?

And yet it was unsettling to think about what lay beneath the surface. It was unsettling to know that there was old mess just waiting to spring forth when we least expected it.

Taking care of hidden chaos has opened up much-needed emotional energy. We’re creating something we’re proud to show off and that functions in a way that enhances our quality of life; more importantly, we’re creating something in which we’re comfortable just existing. With every little change, with every nook and cranny we put in order, every item we donate because it’s no longer serving us, we’re becoming more content and more able to focus on enjoying what we’re working hard to achieve. A beautiful, less-cluttered apartment and a beautiful, less-cluttered existence.

Oh, and a magnificent area dedicated to crafts and LEGO. But that, my friends, warrants a post of its own.