Clear your clutter, Clear your mind

I was having a pretty bad couple days... A lot of emotions that I was able to bury and forget about came up to the surface. It had to do with a situation I was in when I first got out to site and it was a really hard time. But I took control of my situation then and got out. Everything was all better until I went back there to where all this had been taking place and it just stirred everything all up again and I didn't even realize how bad at the time. Something about Peace Corps, or Cambodia, or Peace Corps in Cambodia... you never know how you will feel from one moment to the next... literally, it can be a change in mood from complete euphoria to utter dispair in the matter of seconds... and you might not really even realize the reason for the shift.

I had a long talk with my dad about everything that I was feeling and going through and that's when I realized where my sudden anger and unhappiness was coming from. So what do you do? You take control. I can't change what happened and what I went through, I can only move forward and continue to do what I was doing before last week.

For me, since I only have two months left until I COS, I decided that it was time to completely overhaul my house. Junk be gone! All those random handouts from training... get out of my life and my head. Feng Shui... I needed to get some good Chi flowing through.

Since the rainy season has finally started and the dust is bearable, I'm able to open my front door. What a difference!!! People can come and go and I don't feel so cut off. Open a window, open a door, create a breeze that will re-new the energy and get rid of all the stagnant air! I'm getting pretty hippie with all this stuff, but hell, isn't that what peace corps is? Haha, I've always been a little hippie I guess. And I touched into my Native American roots and did a mock sage burning... I don't have any sage, but I have some incense that they use when they give sacrifices to their ancestors and on Buddhist holy days, so I used that... I went into the corners of my house and I kinda prayed slash thought about what I want to bring into my house and what I want to get rid of...

I cleaned every inch of my house that wasn't in the piles of things to give away or take back to Phnom Penh. My little neighbor friend helped wash my floors and I rewarded him with some chocolate soy milk that I got the last time I was in the city. All in all a great day. Fresh sheets, clean mosquito net, dusted bookcase.

Moral of the story, don't let yourself get into a rut. Take control of your situation. If it's bad, try to fix it. If you can't fix it, do everything you can to make every other part of your life easier... not that from now on everything will be all sunshine and rainbows... but tonight I'll sleep knowing waking up tomorrow will be a joy, it's always nice waking up to a clean house.