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Overwhelmed by life? Regain a bit of control one sock at a time.
I have a dream… that every sock should have a mate.
Every so often, I am haunted by the same dream. It’s an incredibly vivid dream, intense and deeply satisfying.
This dream involves a real-life giant basket of unmatched socks that sits on my bedroom floor. In the dream, I manage to find the mate for every single sock in that basket—even my sons’ Nike socks, with their maddening subtle differences in shading, ribbing, and swoosh colors.
I remember the first time I awoke from this dream. After the initial feelings of satisfaction and contentment wore off and reality reared its ugly head, I thought: Is this how pathetic my life has become? (You’re probably thinking the same thing about my life right now, dear reader, let’s be honest.) How on earth could I seriously be having the emotional equivalent of an erotic dream about matched up socks?
Then I had the dream again. And again. When I had the dream once again last week, I figured out that maybe this dream was my subconscious mind’s way of expressing something. I think my brain is trying to tell me that I am craving order right now. And it makes sense.
The beginning of 2020 has been crazier than usual in our household. After living as empty-nesters for a year, my 19-year-old son moved back into the house, turning our lower level into his own studio apartment AND getting a puppy. I’m not saying any of this is bad—it’s really not—but none of this was part of my plan, and it is taking some adjusting. On top of all of that, I’ve taken on some very big work-related projects which involve a bit of a learning curve and some tight deadlines. Add in some travel and a steady stream of weekend guests—again, none of this is bad; I swear, I am not complaining—but clearly something in my psyche is feeling like life is careening a teensy bit out of control.
So now that my sock-matching dream has revealed my sense of losing a bit of control to my conscious self, what am I going to do about it?? One of the first things I did was to purge that giant basket of socks.
I threw out a huge pile of “hold-out” socks—the singles I’ve been holding onto since my young adult children were in middle school, holding out some slim hope that someday, somehow, a mate was going to magically appear. So, my basket of single socks has now been reduced to about 1/3 of what it used to be — still too many, but it’s a start…
I’m also trying to take control of whatever small aspects of life that I can. I am trying to be consistent about exercising—which, in addition to the physical benefits, seems to help me calm my mind. I am making detailed to-do lists every day for both my work and personal life to help me stay on task when my mind is going in 10 directions at once. And I’m trying to keep my surroundings neat and tidy.
I am definitely one of those people who thinks more clearly and performs better if my environment is uncluttered and clean. If there are dust bunnies on my floor or dirty dishes piling up in the sink, I have a hard time concentrating, and I feel even more stressed out than normal. So I am extremely grateful for and dependent on the twice-monthly cleaning crew that keeps my floors, bathrooms and countertops clean. When you consider the way it positively affects my productivity as well as my sense of serenity, the cost of a professional cleaner is more than worth it!
If, like me, you’re feeling overwhelmed by the chaotic pace and messiness of life, there is an easy way to grab back a little sense of control. Give Immaculate Clean a call! And in the meantime, purge your unmatched socks, before they start haunting your dreams!
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