The Neglected Places

William Morris Project: 2013 Throwback Thursday...

I am tending the neglected places, those spots in my home that are taken for granted.  The dresser top, the hall table, the blanket chest in the entry...all the spots we mindlessly pile the minutia of everyday.

There are so many things that we don't deal with right away, that we know someone will need to deal with sometime.  A button that has come loose, paperwork from school, mail.  In the flurry of getting through the week a small mountain of cast off items builds in these same familiar spots.

I feel like these cast-offs are invisible to the rest of the family.  It always falls to me to sort and deal with the components of the piles.  As I sifted and put away this week I thought about how easy it is to get side tracked and neglectful.  These dumping grounds in my home are symptomatic of neglect in other areas of my life...my health, my prayer and meditative time, my appearance.

Several characteristics make me prone to self-neglect.  Being a woman, a mother, a wife, and a people-pleaser I put other people's needs before my own.  And in the same way that the rest of the family can walk past the piles on the hall table without seeming to notice, I know I can't rely on anyone besides myself to be aware of what I need.

The wood of the neglected spots in my home is glowing this morning.  It looks so pretty and so much less burdened, making me smile every time I walk past.  If my spirits are lifted this much by the flat surfaces of the pass throughs of my home being cleared and cared for, imagine how I would feel if I tended the other neglected areas of my life.