Spring Cleaning!

So I took off a couple of days last week to spend time with my mini-me for Spring Break. (which was awesome by the way!)  We just talked and spent time doing whatever we felt like doing. She is such an amazing little person.  Anyhoo, Friday morning we had plans with friends to ride the train and go to the museum. So, we got dressed and hurrried out to make sure we werent late and in my haste I grabbed the trash (to throw in the dumpster on the way out), flung it in my trunk and got in the car. I carelessly drove out of the complex and went about my day. My car was parked at the train station all day, I got back to my car, got in and went on about my day. HOWEVER, the next morning I woke up, went down to my car (not to mention it was like 80 degrees outside already) and opened my car door to get in and BAM! I got hit with a whiff of the most AWFUL, STENCH, SMELL and ODOR you could imagine. It was a real nightmare. It wasnt until then that I had my 'light bulb moment' and remembered "OH NO! I NEVER TOOK OUT THE FREAKIN TRASH". Immediately I rolled down my windows (my weak attempt of getting rid of the smell) and drove as fast as I could to the garbage can and tossed it.

Later on that day I got in my car and I could still smell the trash, althought it wasnt nearly as strong, I knew it had been there and was lingering. (I'm getting to my point now) I was driving in my car thinking...how did I forget? and who wants to ride around in a funky car? Made me think about life and when we go through things and situations even when we intend to get rid of the trash or remove the trash from our lives we end up hauling it around subconciously and never even realize it. A good friend/sister of mine wrote a recent post concerning de-cluttering our lives. As frightening as the thought may be, the liberated feeling from getting rid of all that unecessary 'junk' that we carry around may be well worth it.  Her post and my recent mishap made me think about all kinds of things: like what other trash am I carrying around  that I havent fully gotten rid of? or forgotten to take out?  I decided that this could be a lot of things... a broken heart from a relationship gone sour, hurt feelings from someone that has wronged you, a crushed spirit from horrible and painful events that happened in your childhood or adulthood, maybe even guilt from something YOU did to someone that you haven't forgiven yourself for or overcome, or it could just be a void left by some event that has occured... or anything else that we carry around with us that leaves a stench that we often mistakenly take out on the next person or situation we become involved in; because we smell this stench when we dont even realize it isnt coming from them... its the residue of previous events that havent been fully dealt with and processed.

Then I began to think, is it fair to ask someone to 'ride' with you knowing that you have this trash that you've convienently forgotten about or just happen to set aside and not deal with right now? pretending that we dont smell it and hoping they dont either.  That's really unfair that we expect people to do that and force them to ride around with us and in essence carry our trash WITH US. At some point when we step back and evaluate the situation we have to take things head on and deal with them and not continue to ride around holding onto things and allowing them to infiltrate and 'stink up' our new opportunities. I'd hate to have my trash riding with me and preventing someone from wanting to 'roll' with me because they smell a foul odor... time to do some spring cleaning and get my fresh smell back! :) I know I have some things lingering around that I havent 'quite' dealt with but this post is my friendly reminder to dive in, deal with it and toss the things I dont need. It's time to take out the trash...and make room for and replace it with new smiles, new memories and new opportunities and all that good stuff...oh and new smells! :) LOL