Why I Have An Empty Drawer in my Kitchen
How emptiness leaves room for positivity in your life.
I have a great kitchen. I’m not bragging, but just saying that my kitchen perfectly suits my needs and I love it. When we initially moved in it was a sad space complete with yellow cabinets, purple trim, and navy tile. Dee-lish, right?! The kitchen had great space and great light so we gutted it and made it our own. Again, the ‘we’ really means my husband.
We now have light maple cabinets, a center island, and quartz countertops. It’s heaven to me.
Now because I enjoy spending time in my kitchen, I’m always finding ways to make it more organized and efficient. I can’t help myself! And, of course, that means purging from time to time. Well on my last purge and re-organize session a year ago, I realized I had completely cleaned out a drawer. Yes, I had an empty drawer in my kitchen! Woot, woot!!
What does one do with a completely empty drawer in their kitchen? Well, I debated for a while about the space, but ultimately couldn’t come up with anything that I wanted or needed to put in it. In the end, I decided not to fill it and it’s been empty for a year now. Having that drawer empty symbolizes a lot of things for me; space to breath, the potential for growth, future possibilities, a blank slate, a fresh start. You see, every time I open up this empty drawer it makes me smile. There’s nothing in it! That means there’s nothing I have to take care of, maintain, clean or re-organize. Ahhh…
I’m a big fan of the television show, The Big Bang Theory, and one of the actors, Mayim Bialik, blogged about how she hired a professional organizer named Katrina. This woman completely got her house in order and taught Mayim a few lessons about organization along the way. Here’s an excerpt from Mayim’s post on the blog, Kveller, where she talks about the ‘No Stuffing’ concept she learned:
No stuffing. When I see space, I want to fill it. Maybe it’s some ingrained genetically favorable immigrant-background second generation American desire to accumulate; I don’t know. But I like filling space. Katrina said very simply, “No more stuffing.” That means if something has to be stuffed somewhere, it doesn’t go there. Again: sounds so intuitive but it had not occurred to me. It occurred to Katrina. And once you make space for things to come in physically, it also makes room for things to come into your life conceptually. Smart, huh!?
As you can imagine, Mayim’s words resonated with me and my kitchen drawer. By holding this empty space, I’m making room for healthy thoughts and positive energy to come into my life.
What can you unstuff from your space to make room for growth and potential?