My closet is a straight up mess. About three weeks or so ago, I reorganized the whole thing, took out all the hangers, all the folded clothes, even folded the dirty clothes that I wasn’t planning on washing yet so it would look nice.

That lasted all of a week, maybe. 

In reality, there is probably just too much stuff in my closet.

Everything needs a place and without that place the walls cave in (or in terms of my actual closet that curtain falls down).

My life currently feels like I just reorganized my closet, so it’s nice and clean and not so messy. For the moment everything has a place, a structure. I finally feel like I have a moment to breath. 

And it feels weird. It feels incredibly still.

A week or so ago I walked outside with my tiny humans and the air felt still. It was that moment where you felt as if you were in the eye of a storm, just before the wind comes back again.

That’s how I feel. Like I am in the eye of the storm, like I am one day away from my closet curtain falling and all of my clothing being spilled on the ground.

2016 hasn’t been the kindest to me. I’ve felt emotional, beat up, less than, among so many other things. I haven’t always responded the most eloquently. 

I’m wanting to choose to believe that something incredibly good can happen. 

I have spent a lot of my life choosing to believe for others. I don’t think that actually will ever change. I’m a big fan of my friends and a supporter of their relationships and dreams and life choices. Ask me about my people and I will give you an earful.

But in this stillness I’m wondering how to choose to believe that this next week will be different than the 43 that preceded it this year.

And don’t misunderstand me: 2016 has had some incredible moments. My closet friends/family had their first baby girl. I got to make cheesecakes to help an amazing couple celebrate their wedding. I had my one year in Bellingham. I got to stand my friends side as they got married.

But I’ve spent a majority of this year knock down, drag out tired, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

So, because of this, the stillness scares, the slight organization of my life petrifies me.

Like, what else can go wrong?

And it brings about the real question: why is it so hard to hope for yourself?

I was watching my new favorite show yesterday (“this is us”) and William, wise old grandpa, called out Kevin, handsome Hollywood man, on doubting himself. 

That hit me.

I do that a lot. At work, with friends, in my writing, with people I greatly respect.

I doubt before I hope. Before I believe.

I doubt that the week will be different before I hope that it will or believe that it can. I don’t think that the stillness is a call to rest, but a moment to take a breath before the storm hits.

My thinking has gotten skewed here in Bellingham. 

But for this week, for this stillness before week 44 of 2016, I am going to choose to take a deep breath in it and believe with whatever I have in me that the storm isn’t coming back for now.

I’ve had more emotions and felt more things in these 43 weeks of 2016 then I have in years. All the emotions, all the things, but also all the words.

So, let’s take all the emotions, all the things, all the belief and hope and words into Monday and see just what we can do.