Spring cleaning....

and all its requisite labors has been happening around these parts the last several days. While it is a relief to get rid of the clutter and see the original surfaces of things like floors, desks, cabinets, and the like, it is as much as an emotional labor as it is a physical one.

I'm one of those that has memories attached to things that others would quickly label as "junk." That shirt I was wearing the last time I held James. That book that was given to me after my first year as a Bible teacher. That brochure that I used to plan our family trip to Williamsburg.

Agh. I wish that I could easily toss those things. And sometimes I am able to break the bond, remember the moment, smile (or shed a tear) and "let it go!" But other times that thing, whatever it may be, just goes into the deal with it later pile.

This year's spring cleaning may have been invested with a tad bit more emotion, I will confess. Nate, my oldest son, went on his first college visit the same weekend that I was at the homeschool convention with my youngest son planning his high school courses while my middle son was at home playing a big regional soccer game. Between Thursday and Saturday my heart was in three very different places.

Spring cleaning was on the tails of trying to mentally group and re-group how very different one year from now will be in our lives. We are at the beginning of an ending of sorts. Spring cleaning in a year will involve packing one up for a move out of the house and not just a re-organization of his room.

As one friend would write, cue "Sunrise, Sunset."

So--clutter was removed. Memories were remembered. Some things just moved from one pile to another. And tears were shed that I blamed on the dust that is stirred up from all that cleaning.