The Special Room I Love, But Do Not Enter

There is a room in my house. It lives upstairs, right next door to my bedroom.

It is a most wonderful room!  Tall windows stretch almost the entire length across the outside wall. The light dances in sparkling clarity in and out, up and down across ceiling and floor alike. Yellow walls join in the merriment as they stretch down to meet with a wooden floor painted a most delightful color of light sky blue. And the ceiling, not to be outdone, sweeps in gentle curves at the edges.

As I said, this is a most wonderful room – a room that deserves company and love.

The thing is: I hardly ever go into the room. The door stays closed.

Now, before you start jumping to conclusions, let me explain: No, I am not trying to keep myself out of the room. In the bigger scheme of things, it’s simply a room. Truth be told, my goal is to keep my cat Perk out. She’s developed strange and destructive habit of pulling out carpet – strand by strand. (The upstairs landing is already a shambles.)

And, speaking of carpety sorts of things, the most glorious long-stranded creamy soft area rug covers about half the floor in this room. (Perk appears to be particularly fond of long white strands. Still curious why I close the door?)

Beyond that, if the door is open, my dog Blue – sweet old girl that she is – is stretched out on that same creamy-white long-stranded rug. Enough of Blue’s stretching, and my rug is closer to off-gray than off-white. All in all, not a good plan.

So there you have it. I have a most wonderful room in my house – a room with a very good heart – and I keep it shut off, shut away.

Okay, I do peek through the big window in the door at least once each day to make sure the room isn’t lonely. Doesn’t seem to be. Then again, not being a room myself, how am I to know?

I’m sure, by most people’s count, it’s just a room . . in a house . . a nice room to be sure . . but just a room . . much like any other.

Then again, we all have rooms in our houses that we steadfastly refuse to go in, don’t we? You know . . places in our lives that we’d really rather not visit . . memories whose doors we do our best to hold shut . . even on the sunny days.

I know I do. Shhhhh. Don’t tell anyone. Most people think I’m perfect. (Okay, just a little off .)

There Are Rooms In My Life . .

There are rooms in my life I would not go in – rooms I kept hidden, and refused to let anyone else know existed. These rooms held the parts of my history I fled long ago. There were rooms that disappointed me, and rooms that I held on to because they reminded me of all the ways I disappointed other people – people I cared about. And by holding on to them, I could keep reminding myself what a disappointment I was . . just in case I started to feel a little cocky . . a little too sure of myself. (Nothing like holding on to the viper so you can be there when it decides to bite!)

Anyway . .

Most of the boxes in these rooms are most likely filled with little more than dust by now – but I really don’t care to go in and dig around to prove it. (Some surprises are best kept in the box . . so to speak.)

The thing is: I’m the only one those rooms could haunt. I’m the only one who even knows they’re there – there being inside my thinking and my memories.

What possible benefit would I gain by keeping them as they are? What if – just on a lark – I threw all the doors and windows wide open, and aired things out just a bit?!

What if I even grabbed hold of a couple of those old boxes, and tossed them out the window. (I’m betting they’d disintegrate before hitting the ground.) Care to try it in one of your own rooms?

Heaven forbid we might see all these rooms and the boxes they hold for the sorry reminders of long outgrown beliefs and insignificant bits of weak-kneed guilt they’ve become.

Just a thought, of course.

There Are Rooms In My Heart . .

There are rooms in my heart I would not go in – rooms draped in mourning from people, loves, and relationships long dead – or at least dead to me.

The things of the heart are the hardest to let go. And the rooms didn’t seem to mind how full I crammed them before forever slamming the door behind me.

Then again: Is it the heart, or the heart’s memories that kept those rooms so darkly lit? The heart continues on. And would that it might ever be thus.

And the more time filters through the memories, the more the rooms come back to life. Even though we might wish the heart to give us more time – and more time, and more time – it knows that’s not what we need.

Ah yes. The rooms of the heart: Rooms built of and for love. We may hide ourselves from them. And, at times, we may need to wrap ourselves in the costumes their boxes hold – at least for a little while . . till the pain moves on.

But we must remember that despite the hurts and the sadness that sometimes fill the rooms in our hearts, those rooms cannot stay closed off and closed up forever. The heart wants us to feel the fullness of life. Its many rooms bid us enter to throw off the drapes and welcome the light.

The rooms of the heart are many, just as the call to love is a universal call. Mourn if you must. And when the mourning is done, re-open your heart to life, and celebrate as only the heart can celebrate.

My heart stands with arms open and ready to join with yours in the dance.

Just a thought, of course.

There Are Rooms In My Mind . .

There are rooms in my mind I would not go in – rooms filled to the brim with all the negative self talk, beliefs and assumptions I’d told myself over the years.

Boxes upon boxes of self-defeating sludge I had haplessly piled into those shuttered rooms. And over the years, I piled. And I piled, and I piled. I piled the stuff till there was barely room to breathe inside those rooms. And then I closed the door and crept away.

The thing is: Everything I had piled in those boxes kept seeping out to play in my mind. They climbed on swing sets in my thinking, and swung back and forth . . banging into more innocent thoughts . . bruising hopes and dreams . . creating fears and regrets where none had existed before.

And the more the stuff of those boxes created new pathways for their swinging – and the more they spread themselves around – the more power they assumed was due them. And the more they tried to take. Their numbers were certainly great enough.

Then again, what was I getting in return? What could they possibly give back to me that would be anything better than themselves – the things I’d already spent far too much of myself trying to lock away and out of my view?

The rooms of the mind are like intricate multi-sided puzzles. One piece out of place, and an entire room becomes something completely different – something unexpected. If the mental sludge is getting too heavy, then it seems only smart to do the unexpected, don’t you think?

After all, we’re constantly learning, constantly growing. The things we’ve locked away are long done. They are our yesterdays – the past. They are the pieces of our puzzles that are blank, for they contain nothing upon which to build our lives. They can’t grow. All they can do is sit there, swinging back and forth in our memories, swinging.

We give these old thoughts and memories power when we lock ourselves away from them. But what if they no longer warrant the power we’re giving them? (What if they never really did?)

What if we – each of us – is so very much more than all the “STUFF” we have hidden away in the boxes in the rooms of our minds?

We get to choose what stays in the dark corners of our thoughts to haunt and torment us. We also get to choose what thoughts and memories we’ll use to build our present and our futures. It’s our choice. It’s always been our choice.

Just a thought, of course.

The Challenge of Rooms

What if all the rooms in which I hide myself – and you hide yourself – were unnecessary? What they hide is long past. What they hide cannot be changed or relived. They are rooms of dust.

The challenge for each of us is to let go of whatever it is we rely on to chain ourselves to them, so they can return to the past . . and each of us can move on.

And about that beautiful room upstairs – the one I do not enter: What do you imagine would happen if, instead of closing the door and looking in through a window, I just …………………………….?

.   .   .   .   .

Are you challenged by boxes and rooms in your life? Please, share your thoughts with me on the rooms in your life that you do not enter.

Why do you stay out?

What rooms have the greatest hold on you?

Is it time to take a new look – or just to start peeking – into the dark spaces and see what’s really hiding in there?

I’d love to hear from you.

Keep growing my friend,

Gail

Tagged as: assumptions, beliefs, boxes, disappointment, guilt, history, holding on, hopes and dreams, Letting Go, love, memories, self-talk