Cleansed

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This time last year I quickly realized that I was immersed in perhaps one of the largest changes of my life. I had just had a baby, was living out of boxes, was adjusting to Kelly’s new job with AT&T, had recently vacated my position at the hospital and was now a stay at home mom of two children that were probably just as nervous as I was… and with good reason. My plate was full and perhaps my cup and lap as well… I was in all out messy eater. My life needed a little cleaning, perhaps a healthy dose of organization and at least one long nap. However it just wasn't the right time for additional tasks...not yet.

Weeks turned into months and I found that was slowly beginning to gain a little foothold in my world of upheaval. My new abode had a the familiar smells of home, I finally learned how to work the electric gate, had returned to a new part time position at the hospital and had actually met my new best-friend-with-a-kid at a park. Suddenly, newness felt a lot less scary and frankly- a bit less new.

It was at this time that I decided to make a “Completely Julie List”. In case you didn’t know this I love lists immensely. Which is funny because I really am not all that logical or organized… My “completely Julie list” was a list written on a piece of torn spiral notebook paper (my lists don’t have to look pretty) that outlined everything that I thought would make me feel at peace with my surroundings. It was hoped that after everything on my list was checked off I would feel like me- completely. Really the whole concept of all of this is sort of funny because I had no idea what complete Julie felt like because it was ever-evolving. But oh well.

The timing was perfect. This year is my Golden year. For me, I decided that the golden part of this year was to focus on inner strength and light. Kick off was for September. I joined a gym, attended local PTA programming, and life became a little busy… but in a good way. I like to feel busy and also stay up late which I have found is a very good combination.

Along with most people in the world we got swept away in the haze between November and January and emerged with about a million new kid toys in our house. But changes were still happening.

One of the things that I really wanted to try was a cleanse this year. Kelly and I decided to go with the master cleanse. It was hard—mainly, because I love food--- but my goodness, was it wonderful! I don’t know that it was so much that we needed a lemonade mixture to feel healthy but more that it was good timing with the changing of the seasons. I think what I loved the most about it was the energy that we now had. Tasks that had been long abandoned were now finally completed--- like the cleaning of my closets. I think that this could be a post to itself. My home has been clean but my closets had been a mess…very much a reflection of my life.

Life comes full circle. By this time my “completely Julie list” is lost and long forgotten. This weekend as Kelly and I were immersed in closet chaos I stumbled across a box. I initially assumed it was all trash and then looked inside to discover a piece of torn notebook paper with a ‘completely Julie list’- my 27 goals that would help find me. Immediately, I was able to see how far I had come from the nervous person immersed in her world of change. In many ways it was the totality of the list that brought my whole Julie project to a close. So while outwardly the master cleanse was really great… it was really a list, some closets and a bunch of crossed off words that became the best plan for cleansing a Julie…

completely.