I was not ready for the mental fatigue associated with grief. My grief sister was so gentle, what with how she slipped into my life and touched my hand when I ached.

But in the months leading up to and then following Peter’s death, I lived in a suspended world. I tried to push forward. I tried to keep on top of my chores or my housework or my life work.

But the dust bunny invasion definitely showed the status of my surrender. And I will not discuss the castle of clutter I lived in.

Past tense.

I woke up right around New Year’s Day. And I don’t think it’s the magic of a new year or resolutions. I know it’s just the time lapse of healing and changes I had steadily been making in my life.

But sometime in early January, I woke up to my grief sister gone and my confidence nestled deep within me. It felt good to stretch my back and feel my vertebrae snap into place like a priceless string of pearls.

I have grown. I have changed. I have stopped seeing myself as a splintered, fractured being whose body and mind warred with each other. I’ve finally started recognizing myself as a whole individual.

And as I breathe and feel my skin tighten and warm, I inhabit the space surrounding me with a new resilience. An ownership I’ve not felt for almost six years.

Last week, I invaded the clutter. I stretched the boundaries of my anxieties and insecurities and piled them into plastic totes that I settled in the foyer. They nested there and watched me with hooded, baleful eyes. But as I migrated throughout the rooms, they settled. And started to snore.

I am no neat freak. I wish I was. I wish my desks were clear and easy to see. But I have my stacks of work to be done. Papers to be filed. Books to be read. Photography books to be studied. Journals to be written in. Oh. And the cups filled with pens or colored pencils or memorabilia.

And I was anxious about cleaning because what if I put something in the wrong place and then I couldn’t find it and that one thing was like really important to the safety of the world and without that one object, the world would cease to exist and OH MY GOODNESS!!!!

I wish I could say that I was exaggerating. Okay. I am. A little.

Last week, I cleaned about half of the house. I SCRUBBED three rooms. I spent almost ten hours just moving things around and finding the space to live.

Today, I cleaned the whole house. It wasn’t a perfect scrub festival. But the first thing I will say to friends who might visit is welcome.

Not please excuse the mess.

My house is not immaculate. But I also know that I will never have an immaculate home because I don’t care enough to have an immaculate home. I want a clean home. I want a comfortable home.

I want a home. And I have one. And tomorrow, I’m going to scrub the upstairs bathrooms and organize the hell out of my office.

And then I’m really going to start scrubbing the rest of the house because it’s time to reclaim my life.