Healing STUFF
by Sherri Foster

It never occurred to me that I could mend my fractured home by rearranging my furniture. When I called my good friends Victoria Winsor and Cheryl Hughes, of Allow Me, to ask if they could help with my unmanageable stuff, I didn’t think I was inviting a wave of family health into my life. All I wanted to do was park my car in my garage! None the less, I received a personal healing and it is having a trickle down effect on my whole household.

This past year I closed down my dream business. What had started out as a great vision and my plan for supporting my family for the next ten years (I’m a single mom), ended in financial disaster. I became one of the statistics: a small business that failed within its first five years. When I closed my business, I moved the remnants into my home, especially my garage. My garage was wall to wall “furniture and fixtures,” the catch phrase for all the stuff you buy to run a business. I felt like a big part of me had died, my personal dream, and its decayed remains had moved in with me. Every time I walked into the garage to fetch a broom or to deposit one more thing I didn’t have space for inside the house, I was reminded of my loss. Much of the stuff was valuable and could be resold but I couldn’t even muster the energy to deal with it, even though it meant making enough money to pay off the last remaining bills. I was depressed. My family had trouble relating to me because I acted distant and removed. My daughter told me she couldn’t stand me because I was always “so sad.” I felt confused, helpless and vulnerable.

One day, as I sat staring at my computer trying to get up the energy to type in www.ebay.com and begin selling the stuff in my garage, the thought hit me: CALL CHERYL AND VICTORIA! Victoria had helped me organize my home before and when I was a Realtor I referred her to many of my clients. She also helped launch the retail division of a company I worked for in La Jolla. Cheryl and I worked together on a long term volunteer project. I knew that, somehow they’d be able to help.

Not only have they helped, they’ve created an emotional landslide that has me up and going and has inspired me to move on. Little by little, they’ve supported me in peeling away my business defeat and replacing it with some joyfully remembered, but lost parts of myself.

The first day they came, they emptied everything in the garage onto my driveway and front lawn. It was exhausting and ghastly to watch the remnants of my failure marched out for the whole neighborhood to see. And yet, the act of moving it around created a sense of relief. It was as if the goblins of fear disappeared as each item was moved into an organization that was practical and logical. Many of my neighbors stopped to see if there was stuff they could buy. One guy said he was meeting with a client that afternoon and he thought she might want the 80 folding chairs I didn’t need any more. I gave him my number and made the mental note that this was never going to happen.

Sure enough, that afternoon his client called me and I sold all 80 chairs! In the process of taking the stuff out AND putting it back, Cheryl and Victoria organized it in such a way that I could actually walk between neat rows to get what I wanted to, easily. We put price tags on everything and made a list of what was there. As the next week passed, I sold a bunch of stuff to friends and they told their friends. Because it was organized I knew exactly what I had and how much I wanted for it. Little by little the pile of stuff dwindled and my pocketbook grew.

Then we moved our effort inside the house. This time I was excited because the garage cleaning had gone so well. We decided to start with my 9 year old son’s room. His room was a hodgepodge of baby furniture, an unused bunk-bed and tons and tons of toys he hadn’t played with for years. Victoria got him to do what I never could – she sat with him and sorted through everything in his room; toys, books, clothes, furniture. He told her exactly what he wanted to keep and what he didn’t as they divided them into piles of “Keep” and “Pass-on”. If it had been me, he’d have thrown a fit and we’d have ended up in a fight. It’d happened many times before. With Victoria he was able to be objective and get the job done. And what I thought would take me days, took her minutes! I think she was here 3 hours and we moved old furniture out, brought in new furniture that wasn’t used in another bedroom and was perfect for his room. We TOTALLY rearranged his room, got rid of a truck load of stuff he didn’t want or need. He loved it! I loved it more! He had a habit of waking up in the night and slipping into bed with me – a habit I’ve tried to break because he is getting big – and since Victoria helped him rearrange his room, he has slept in it all night …EVERY NIGHT!!!!

When we were cleaning out his closet, we found a quilt top that I’d made for him a few years before. He and I had picked out all the fabrics and it holds sweet memories of those fabric shopping adventures. He was excited to find it and said “How come you never finished it, Mom?”

I could go on and on about what Victoria and Cheryl have done for me. Not only have they helped me reorganize the stuff from my business which I’ve begun to sell and pay off outstanding debts, they’ve staged the furniture so that each room flows better. They’ve reorganized and cleaned out every closet, cabinet and shelf in my home and made my life much simpler. Because of their organizing skills, I am cooking and quilting and having a great time, remembering the things I love. I am actively putting my failure behind me and starting a new career. I am excited about life and sometimes even wake up happy. My kids and I are getting along better. We have organized our way into a healthier, happier family.