Happy Wednesday, folks.

The state of Alex’s room has always bothered me.

If you have a teenager, you may relate to the distinct smell or vibe that comes from their messy space.  The clothes on the floor, crinkled-up loose-leaf paper, Snapple caps, and basic disarray eventually made it impossible for the women who clean our home to set foot within it. Once in a while, he’d pick up the floor and stack its contents on top of his bed – just to get us off of his back – but ultimately, without actually throwing garbage away, putting clothes where they belonged, etc. the room went back to the mess it was.

We tried for years to model how to care for our belongings.  We explained how it felt to eat the frog, as Domenick says – to care for the space around us, and then to be able to relish in the good work and beauty we have created.

We insisted he clean it.  We helped him to clean it.  We ignored it.  We shut the door.

Several weeks ago, Alex opted to temporarily stay with his mom instead of sharing time between his two homes.

The expectation was that once the summertime arrived, he’d revert to the old schedule.

In the weeks that he had not been here with us, the door to his room has remained closed.

But just before school ended, in anticipation of his return, I decided to open it up.  I needed to face it.

And so I cleaned.

To be clear, I did not clean it to do him any favors.

I cleaned it because his room was a visible indication of our relationship with him [in addition to his relationship with himself].

And I wanted us to have a clean slate.

On one hand, it is unfair for a room in our home to be in such a state.  Our house is far from perfect, but it is not unkempt or out-and-out unsanitary.  I don’t even have so much as a junk drawer.  For it to be mandatory that an entire room be kept off-limits because of its appearance is simply unacceptable.  It is his room, yes, but it is our home.

I could feel the unsettled energy from behind his door.

That’s the surface reason that I pulled out my cleaning clothes.

But the metaphorical reason that I had at it was because, when Alex decided to come home, I wanted him to see that we would take the time to do the hard work with him.

That we are here to help him learn to organize, sort, prioritize, and discard.

And that’s exactly what I did.  Receipts in this envelope.  Paperwork in that binder.  Loose change in this jug.  His collection of Snapple caps in that shoebox.

HOWEVER, despite the hours of work, his room was not “done”.

So even though it looked clean, like the clean slate we wanted to offer him, he has his own work to do.  There are things that still need to be done.  He needs to decide what to do with each receipt and piece of paper.  I couldn’t do that for him – and simply tossing it all would have been a huge breach of trust.  His stuff – or the challenges they relate to – are not mine.  They are his.

So while I was excited for his homecoming, that wasn’t why I cleaned his room.  Despite the fact that I like to organize, that wasn’t why I cleaned his room.  Yes, it’s true, that I like to have a handle on things, but that wasn’t why I cleaned his room.

I cleaned his room as a sign of good faith.

I didn’t expect him to look at his room and understand my intention.

In the weeks since, Alex came home.  When he first saw his room, he genuinely, though breezily, thanked me for cleaning it.  I left it at that. But just yesterday, we sat down to talk some unrelated things out, and he brought the room up on his own.  He talked about how much it meant to him that I had taken them time to organize it, and how he wanted to keep it that way – that he felt better in it.

Mission accomplished.

Because I want all of the doors in our home to be joyfully open.

I want all of our rooms to visibly convey our personalities and the things that we each take pleasure in.

Our rooms are not a dumping ground.  We are not dumping grounds.

They are constructed by walls to feel safe – not buried – within.

My Juicy Glad-I-Caught-That:  You have a clean slate every day you wake up. You have a chance every single morning to make that change and be the person you want to be. You just have to decide to do it. Decide today’s the day. Say it; This is going to be my day. ~Brendon Burchard

See you on the flip-side.

In love,

Noelle
xoxox