Cleaning Closets...

It's that time of year when the weather turns warm, seasons change and we need to do a good cleaning in our closets. A Spring cleaning of sorts. We take out the clothing we have worn during the cold and dreary season and make way for our warm weather wardrobe. Cleaning closets.

I always seem to accumulate things in mine. Things I don't really use or want anymore, things I have a hard time throwing away, discarding, letting go of. Things I think I will have a use for but really don't. Things I am attached to but need to part with. Things that no longer fit, no longer fit me.

I have been thinking of a different sort of closet cleaning as well. The mental kind. Cleaning mental closets. When the weather turns warm my mind also needs a cleaning, a good going over. Winter leaves, the sun shines warmer and I want to throw off drabness and make room for lighter thoughts, brighter thoughts certainly.

Sometimes our closet is crammed with things, too many things, much more than we need. We all hang on to things, store them in our mental closets. Remnants of a life lived, souvenirs of battles and skirmishes, of love and laughter. My mental closet is filled with them. Every once in a while, however, I need to get in there and make room for new thoughts, new memories. Brighter ones.

We all have that one item, that one article we can't seem to part with. It felt so good when we wore it, felt so good to be seen in it. Over time, over changing seasons, we may not wear it so much, may not reach for it as often. One day we find we have buried it in the closet, let it be covered up by new favorites, new choices. We still can't part with it, still can't bear to throw it away.

Much like that article we hang on to... we have similar thoughts in our mental closets. Memories we can't let go of, thoughts we bury and can't part with. The funny thing is, just like an article of clothing, these thoughts merely take up space, leave no room for new thoughts, new memories, brighter ones. We end up with a pile of things we have no use for instead of ones we feel good in, ones that fit. Ones that become us.

Seasons change, styles change and we must change with them. We must clean out those closets, make room for new things. Otherwise we are left with a closet full of clothes and nothing to wear.

Indeed.