You know that itch you get to rearrange your furniture at 9 o’clock at night?
When you have this vision of how–let’s say your bed–can better fit your space. How it, if you’d only just rearrange a teeny little bit, would give you better sleep and more rest and everything you’ve ever dreamed of.
The rest of your to-do list fades into the background. Nothing can outshine that idea, that glimpse of a bright new future that has become your bed.
Your bed stands out, gleaming, a tantalizing promise of a WHOLE NEW WORLD!
So of course–oh wait, you don’t get that itch? Luck you.
Walk with me, then.
Pretend.
You rearrange your bed. It doesn’t take long, just a few minutes of pushing and shoving.
Maybe you find a few dust bunnies. Nothing you can’t handle.
Eventually you get the bed where you envisioned it, maybe nestled against a curtain of iridescent fringe you put up a few weeks ago.
Then of course you have to change up your bedside table too.
As you’re moving it, you imagine the beautiful tableau it will make with your bed. You imagine how it will look, all pieces neatly fitting into place, a beautiful spot to sleep and wake up.
And then you step back to admire your work.
Needle scratch.
It doesn’t quite look like you had envisioned.
It’s too crowded.
The bedside table is wonky and feels too big for the space. The end of the bed buts up awkwardly against your wardrobe. There’s a really weird empty space that just…looks weird.
There’s still potential–you can see a glimmer of what you were imagining.
But it’s not there yet.
There’s more work to be done.
But–it’s time to cash in for the night and go to sleep.
That’s the peril of rearranging your furniture at 9 o’clock at night. There’s a hard deadline, and you’ll have to live with wonky, half-arranged furniture for the next few hours (or let’s be honest, days).
Sometimes, you can turn that to your advantage. You can use that in-between time to look at what’s happening and formulate a better plan.
But you still have to live in the in-between.
You have to spend some time in the wonky, half-finished room.
Sometimes, I get the urge to rearrange my health.
I do my research, talk with my doctors, envision a plan for my health, start dreaming of a WHOLE NEW WORLD! of healthy poops and a less restrictive diet.
I put my plan into motion, and…
…end up in that wonky, in-between time.
In my experience, especially with naturopathic and alternative treatments, nothing good comes quickly. Bouncing from one extreme to the other is stressful on my body, and rarely happens when all my organs are working together in harmony.
I get that itch, wanting to rearrange everything right away, hoping to make everything work together right now.
I’ll handle the dust bunnies, I just want to see results.
I want to go from the vision to a perfect bedside tableau in one night, forgetting that it takes time, and consideration, and tweaking, and rest, and for everything to settle back into place.
I have to learn how to live with the wonkiness, understanding that there are things that my body has to go through before it can realize that vision of good health.
My body has to go through the process of rearranging itself.
I just need to calm down, back off and let my body do some interior redecoration of its own.
And in the meantime, make peace with the wonkiness.