Camping Inside : Out of the Boxes inside our Mind

This spring my husband and I started to repaint all the walls and ceilings in our house. We are just about finished and are very happy with all the bright colours in every room, nine different palettes that give the house a Mediterranean feel, in shades with fun names like jitterbug jade, cloudburst, bluebell, inky blue, hearty orange, dynamic blue, pink flamingo and sea washed glass. We are worn out from the long weekends of little sleep where we would fall in the bed around 3:00 in the morning. There are boxes everywhere with books, pictures, paintings, electronics, dishes, towels. I am discovering the mild chaos is refreshing, making us take a step back from what constitutes order. It seems a person's life can be added up to a bunch of boxes that hold our stuff, and tell our story : what we like, what we love, who we share our lives with, our passions, our dreams. Then, when our life is finished, we get put in a box ourselves, permanently. No one will take us out of that one... It made me think that it is easy to get stuck in a box, so to speak, and to just keep hanging on to the same things and patterns that I find in the collection of things our boxes scattered around the house contain. The walls are all new colours now, leaving the old, faded colours from before behind in my mind. It made me re- evaluate all the things in the boxes. I started going through them, and found there were pictures and things in there I could probably update and others I could let go off. Things give us a feeling of permanence. That is an illusion, as we all know, and that is why it is good to have these spring cleanings. They are like camping trips for our minds. When you go camping, you have to focus on the essentials, because the extra stuff, in space and weight, will slow you down, might even endanger your safety and the safety of those on the trip with us. Like camping, to get good at it, you need practice. We were definitely overdue for a thorough spring cleaning, and it feels good to let go of things form dusty pictures to certain mindsets that can keep us from growing and evolving in our attitudes, and the perceptions of our hearts and minds. Open minds lead to new, open paths and that can only be a positive, refreshing way to keep moving forward on this often delightfully confounding and unpredictable camping trip that is life. Hanging on to things that are no longer relevant or helpful can also affect our relationships, and cleaning out our home and belongings, and letting go of things that are now forever in the past, can refresh our connections to our family and friends, keeping our attitudes youthful and flexible. I love the new feel and look of our house, it looks younger, and it makes me feel young still, too. That can only be a wonderful thing. Space in our surroundings leads to space , brightness and fresh air for our hearts, our body and spirit. It feels great to get out of the boxes, with a freshly washed outlook and walk into the sun and sky of the adventures still ahead.