Purge

  Years ago Ali Edwards started a trend that has taken off.  It is called the Word of the Year.
The idea is that you choose a word that you are going to focus your life on and around for the next 12 months.  I liked the idea.  I have thought about it a few times.  I have even chosen a word a time or two.  I remember writing some years back that my word was FOCUS.   I don't really know how well I kept that word in my life or how it helped me or didn't help me. Sadly, I am like others and by the time March rolls around I am on to some other challenge and the New Year focus has been forgotten.

As 2013 started to roll to a close the posts about other people's Word of the Year started to circulate again.  I just kept feeling the urgency to purge everything around me.  I kept thinking that Purge is not a terribly positive or motivating word.  It seems, well, a bit gross!   My thoughts go to a bulimic person trying to purge their bodies of food.   So why would I keep coming back to this word?

 We have lived in our new house for 12.5 years now.  It is a lovely home with a lot of bedrooms and lots of closets.  It has held six people for most of those twelve years.  That is a lot of living.  That is a lot of stuff.  I have been feeling for quite some time that I am being consumed by the chaos that my house has become.  After twelve years there is a lot of excess.  Stuff we don't need.  Stuff we have outgrown, out used, grown tired of, moved passed or even just ignored.  

   I am the mother.  That role gives me the responsibility--even if not desired, to be the one that takes charge and makes this house more acceptable.   I don't really like that I am the one that is responsible, it isn't all my stuff!  However, it seems to have fallen on me to be the one to take charge and take care of the stuff or be in charge of other people taking care of the stuff!!

  So, enter my Word of the Year----PURGE!   I just couldn't get away from it.  I have tried to think of other ways that the word could be used.  The most obvious is to purge unneeded or unwanted things from my life.  That is the easy(although the actual purging is time consuming) part of the word purge.

  As I have begun the process of purging our living space, I have been trying to live with the word purge in other ways.  This may be the more exciting part of the process. 

What needs purged in my life?
*toxic thoughts
*toxic people
*excuses


Could purging toxic thoughts make it so that I am able to focus and have more positive experiences?

Could purging toxic people make it so that I have less negative influences?

Could purging excuses change my life? 

So---Bring it on 2014!!  I am going to make this a great year!!