A messy cupboard is one thing, but what about a terrible job, a lousy friend, or an indifferent spouse? Time for some Spring (Technically, it is. Summer starts in May. Allow me my little denials.) cleaning!
There are things, my friend Tina used to say, with which one should not put up, and Spring cleaning is a good way to deal with them. Rude children, indifferent spouses, bad bosses, lousy friends, social injustice — all have no more place in our lives than painful shoes and shirts with huge yellow stains. But sometimes, Spring cleaning requires a good, long look at oneself. If nothing fits and nothing makes you feel attractive, it's always possible that the fault lies not within our closets, dear Brutus, but within ourselves. Now is a perfect time to learn to love what you have, change what you can't love, and get the hell away from what does you harm. From my point of view — that of a person with never-growing hair — live with your never-growing hair. But not with your toxic mother or energy-sucking job. Hey but if you are hoping to be advised to chuck your job as an accountant / engineer / programmer and leap into a daisy-and-butterfly-filled meadow of new possibilities and success as a poet….not so fast. The impulsive leap is sometimes as bad as no leap at all, since it often ends in disappointment and disruption and debt and a terrible creep back to the old job. Take baby steps, but take them now. Go to the library and study up. Apprentice yourself.
Volunteer in the arena you want to make your career. A good Spring cleaning calls for a walk through every room in the mind-house. Mark some ‘Fix now', some ‘Try again next Spring', on some just scrawl ‘Oh, well' on the door and move on. In my real house, last Spring, I threw out every spice that was more than three years old and every cosmetic that was more than two. However, the suitcases with broken zippers (and diet books and all three versions of Monopoly) remain. In my mind-house, I'm adding yoga to my daily routine. I also re-allocated all bad-energy friendships to ‘Catching up only on FB' and have decided to close the door on gossip. Now you check your mind-house. And if there's something you don't love, change it.
singersuchi@gmail.com
(This is a fortnightly column on relationships)
