Hi friends, I made it home from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania after 31 hours of travel time. I got out of there just before the storm hit and am so very thankful. Hurricane storms are not something we deal with here in Canada and it was all so very scary. I’m so sorry if you were(are) in harms way and affected by the storm. Please know that you are in my thoughts and prayers.
The conference itself was…interesting. I wasn’t expecting my anxiety levels to get as high as they did. Why I thought I could control it this time I don’t know, it is something I’ve battled for years. There were four hundred ladies there and the swells of noise and the proximity to one another was just too much for me to handle. I spent most of my evenings tucked away in my room, quietly contemplating. That was okay though because this past weekend made me aware of something. Something I’ve never quite put a finger on before.
I am not a writer.
It was interesting to me that when I would tell people this, they would laugh and say oh but you are, you just have to own it. But here’s what I know. So many of these women attending this conference are writers. After talking to so many of them, I could see that putting pen to paper or fingers to a keyboard is a lifeline for them. It feeds their soul. They long for it. They are passionate it for it. They live, sleep and breathe it. They have written journals for years, they long for a book deal.
When I say I am not a writer, it is simply because I don’t feel these things. Whether I can or cannot write is irrelevant.
What I am is an organizer.
Now this is what feeds my soul. Deep down to my toes, a day is not a day unless I am organizing something. It is my passion. I am an Organizing Junkie!
I may have written a book (affiliate link) and made a living writing here about organizing for the past 6 1/2 years but it is not the words that perform magic in my heart, it is the act of organizing itself and sharing this love with others.
I love that I can use this blog as a vessel for sharing my passion with you but I never feel like I’m writing to you. Instead I’ve always felt like we were having a conversation. As I sit and type it is simply the discussion I imagine we’d be having if you were here with me in my living room sharing a warm cup of tea. My writing is an extension of that conversation, of my desire to share my passion in order to get others “hooked” on organizing along with me.
It’s okay that I don’t call myself a writer. Writing can look differently for everyone.
It’s also okay if you don’t call yourself an organizer. Organizing can look differently for everyone.
Thankfully we don’t all have to succumb to a one size fits all mold in this world.
Maybe you can’t imagine being super passionate about organizing the way I can’t imagine feeling that way about writing.
But I’ll tell you what. Let’s just keep plugging along shall we. I’ll continue “writing” here with you as long as you’ll continue to take this organizational journey with me. My hope is that my passion for organizing will be contagious and over time start to rub off on you. That you may be motivated to make one small change and then another and then another until you take a look around and give a great big shout of joy as you realize that chaos and clutter don’t have to be permanent guests in your home. That you’ll have discovered a way, that works for you and your family, to kiss those two things goodbye for good!
Now that gets me fired up to continue and I hope it does for you as well. Together, we’ll do this!
Mandy (@DailyCupOfGrace) says
Oh Laura….this hit home. You put into words my feelings and thoughts, too. I struggled with the same ideas this weekend, but you put them into words for me. I am a theologian! I am a reader! I, too, am an organizer and clean freak…standing right behind you. And I am a talker…sharer! I love to share the grace of the gospel with women and I am realizing I need to stop striving for something I am not and let my blog be the extension of me…not me. So glad you took the time to share what you did today. And glad to know you made it home okay. Oh…I liked the “rockets” which down here we call smarties! 🙂
Mary@The Encouraging Home says
Love this post! It was so great meeting you at Allume and keep running into it. I enjoyed sitting with you at breakfast before your Canandian pics. Loved seeing your notebook….I want one! 🙂 I wish I could bring you to my house. For real. Farm life, homeschooling, caring for aging parents, sickness has left my home in a whirlwind. But since I can’t, I will soak in what you have here. I STILL think you could sell your notebooks. 🙂
Lyn Cooke says
I wouldn’t change a single thing about you! What a blessing to meet you and spend some quality time together. May God continue to richly bless you in being “Laura”. Sending lots of love to you across the miles….
Lani says
You make me smile…even a province away!! I think I had the same experience in reverse, realizing I really do need to own that writer thing and write! I think I’ve been too scared to really put it out there, but I love it and it does give me life to put words on paper (or screens). Seriously though, I want you to come over I’m drowning in this stuff…so I am officially going to subscribe to your site….They call rockets smarties? Then what do they call the smarties? Oh yeah, I overheard one of your roommates reveling in our Oreos! 🙂
kalynbrooke | Creative Savings says
This post really hits home. Sometimes I’m not sure I’m a writer, or even a blogger – I almost like the administrative stuff more than the writing, but I love the connection and community that blogging brings to the internet.
Glad you made it home safe!
Heather says
Hello Laura! It was great meeting a fellow Canadian blogger at Allume. We sat together for dinner on the last night and I knew once I took a look at your blog that I’d find tips that could help me. What an interesting site! I’ll be back here for sure.
Love, Heather
Donna says
Laura!! It was so nice to meet you at Allume! I wish I had more time to sit down with you and connect! I hear you about being a writer. I struggle with the same thing. I’m a virtual assistant and that is what I’m gifted at. Consulting and managing projects. That is what I’m great at, writing – I can do it but it is not my gift! I can talk up a storm but when I sit down to write it’s a challenge. I hope we can connect again soon, I’m sad I didn’t have the time at Allume!
Ps. Keep doing what you do, because it is what you’re gifted at. You’re not just good at it, you are gifted at it and I LOVE it!
Tara says
I love that you learned such a big thing about yourself. I shy away from crowds and noise, too, but not having a room to retreat to (I commuted back and forth from home), I hung around in the lobby a lot of the time.
I hope you’ll give it another try next year.
Jolene says
So interesting. I was thinking similarly at the conference – I’m not a writer. It’s not that I’m not good at it, or don’t enjoy it – because I am and I do. I have no desire to write a book, or be published or anything like that. Writing is more of a means to an end for me. It is a way to share my story, and relax too. It’s an outlet for thoughts…
What I am is a teacher. I love writing, and in a literal sense of the word we are writers if we write, but I am a teacher. I love to share knowledge, and encourage discussion, and advocate for children, and equip them to think for themselves… That is where my joy and passion are. And that’s perfectly OK. We all can’t be doing the same thing. What would the body of Christ look like if we all did the same thing?
Thanks for your thoughts! I wish I would have connected with you at the conference. And I’m definitely going to look around – because I have a desire to be organized, but I’m not always effective!
God Bless!
~Jolene
Alia Joy says
So glad to have met you and gotten to know you before all the crowds started. I totally get it. You are an organizer, the tip off being when you asked where we “writers” store all of our old journals. That made me laugh out loud. Yes, you have a gift for knowing how to keep an orderly life. I do not have that gifting but do love organization. Unlike you, I REALLY have to work at it. I think it’s so amazing to be able to claim what we are good at and to know our giftings because it does look different for each of us. Very glad to have met you and I will now be lurking around here trying to get the organizing to rub off on me. 🙂
Kathi says
I am so thankful that we had dinner with you, Lani and Lyn that first night! Your line about keeping journals for years had me dying. I instantly heard your voice questioning Lani about where she kept all those journals when she was done with them.
You are obviously so talented and what you have to offer is important in our community of other gifts
PS. Alia and I are sitting in our hotel room ohhhing-and-awwwing at your site this very minute..
Jen (Balancing Beauty and Bedlam) says
Oh friend – it was so great connecting this weekend, but I wish it were longer. I would have come and gotten out of that large group atmosphere and hunkered down with you. 🙂
You are not alone. I am right there with you. We both have been put in this place where the Lord is using us through our writing and yet neither of us turns to writing to feed our soul. That is NEVER something I go to as a creative outlet, yet here we are. Plugging along by sharing those things that we love to encourage women on…through writing. 🙂
Amy @ Finer Things says
Ah, yes! “I could see that putting pen to paper or fingers to a keyboard is a lifeline for them. It feeds their soul. They long for it. They are passionate it for it. They live, sleep and breathe it. They have written journals for years, they long for a book deal.
When I say I am not a writer, it is simply because I don’t feel these things. Whether I can or cannot write is irrelevant.”
Oh, how happy I am that I don’t have to be a writer (or an organizer! Ha!) and still enjoy blogging. 🙂 Now, what exactly *am* I? Hmmmm
Becky L says
I enjoy your blog alot and you do very well conversing with us. (me) You have a good way of writing and getting your point across to help us messy, semi disorganized people out! I thought of you tonight when I was looking through a Better Homes and Gardens Storage magazine. I almost bought it and still might….it had a great spread of ideas for a linen closet and I visualize mine that way, soon. I love some other ideas in there as well. So many things to do so little time…I know a bit at a time…that’s how you eat an elephant….one bite at a time! HA! Glad you got back before the big storm hit. Take care and God bless!
Debi says
This made me so happy to read. I mean, I am so sorry about your anxiety at the conference–I know how horrible that feels. But I am happy about the rest! I just LOVE seeing people embracing their passions! Now obviously, your passion for organizing is evident every. single. day. on this blog. But often I do think that people end up finding their blog is more important than the passion that made them start it. Not that there’s anything wrong with that–some people really do find they’re writers, and good for them. But I think it can start showing when that passion shifts, and the enthusiasm somehow wanes a bit. I don’t believe you will ever lose your enthusiasm! 🙂
Rachel says
Thank you so much for sharing this! I love reading your blog!
I am not a writing either and have thought that because I’m not that starting a blog would be a disaster so I’ve never tried. Now I’m rethinking that, perhaps I just need to write about something I’m passionate about.
I wish I would have known you were at the conference and spending your evenings sitting in a hotel room, I live about an hour away from Harrisburg and would have loved to meet you and even spend an hour showing you some of the sights and chatting in person!
Kate @ Teaching What Is Good says
I hear you! I am not writer either, although most of my family are (4 of my 8 children write continually). I am a mentor – my passion is to disciple women. And when I write, I am much like you – I write as if I had many women (each individually) in the room with me. I write from conversations I’ve had or questions I’ve been asked or have read.
But I love reading women’s blogs who are not writers…who are writing from their passion. It’s just another aspect of the community of bloggers that I love! Thanks for always being so real.
stacy says
I have been following you for quite some time and wanted to let you know how much i appreciate all you do. Your post about guilty clutter got me thinking about various burdens in my life (and how much i hate to clean them 😉 ). So i have been getting rid of what i don’t use daily such as teacups, silver pieces, and SCRAPBOOKS. The teacups and silver pieces and their cleaning burdened me so i gave them to a local tearoom. The thought of finding time to scrapbook like some of my friends just makes me see black not anger but despair, i enjoy it for the moment but it overwhelms me and lacks creativity. Also the idea of albums, space to keep them,, printing pics to keep up to date, the costs, etc OH MY!! so i have decided to get rid of almost all albums. I am scanning all my pictures if i don’t have them on digital with only a few more years to go. then today i got the brilliant idea of also scanning my cards i have received, putting them in a digital file, and also saving them. so baby book of kids, a single memory album for them, and a family history album that i started when i was a senior in high school. i store each year on a cd and then put in the fire safe. so from 4 feet of albums to only 3 inches of cds- YAY!!!!
Marcia (123 blog) says
Oh Laura, you know how I love your heart!
I felt exactly the same at She Speaks (interesting, the God parts good but I’m also not a writer). Strange to many people when I say that but my book is just a means of getting people organised and mainly for me, having the time to live their lives BIG!
I love how you said about sharing and connecting our passions with other ladies.
So how about it? next conference we plan and go to together? 🙂
Marcia (Organising Queen) says
Oh Laura, you know how I love your heart!
I felt exactly the same at She Speaks (interesting, the God parts good but I’m also not a writer). Strange to many people when I say that but my book is just a means of getting people organised and mainly for me, having the time to live their lives BIG!
I love how you said about sharing and connecting our passions with other ladies.
So how about it? next conference we plan and go to together? 🙂
beth@redandhoney says
I loved meeting you at Allume, Laura. I wish we could have chatted more. I think you *are* a writer – in that you express yourself well with words… but there are definitely different kinds of writers. I hope you are able to own your own type and rock it – I certainly think you do! Off to browse your site 🙂 Much love from a fellow Canadian! 😀
Linda Stoll says
a few random thoughts ….
* Those huge conferences can be overwhelming … For years, I went to a counselors conference with 7000+ people attending and it was just way too much with noise and crowds and back to back events from dawn til midnight and no space to move or breathe. Us introverts need quiet time and space to survive, to function at our best, to thrive.
http://creeksideministries.blogspot.com/2012/05/her-introverted-life.html
* Sometimes those big events leave us feeling ‘less than’ and ‘not good enough’ as we can’t help but compare ourselves to others that are there who seem to be so much more accomplished and successful. If these things leave us feeling anxious, discouraged, exhausted … it’s good to notice what our body is telling us.
* I don’t go to that big counseling conference anymore. My husband and I head to a little 1940s cottage, alone, perched on a sand dune, looking out to sea.
;-}
Lauren says
I laugh and shudder and quake to call myself a writer also…but whatever we write, it is the message, the heart behind it! You, my new-found friend, are an amazing encourager in the organizing arena, and that is worth anyone’s weight in words! Thank you for helping us to get our lives sorted out! LOVED meeting you, loved our Canadians photo, and thank you for sharing your deepest, darkest secrets in this post :0)
Susanne says
You may not call yourself a writer but you communicate so well about your passion. And you do it with the written word so I’m leaning towards calling you a writer. :v)
Rachel Nuckolls says
Laura, I love this post. I’ve been follow your blog for a few months now. I’ve recently developed an organizing business through Profitable Organizer, and I can definitely relate to your passion for organizing. It’s who I am and what I love. Where I struggle is people looking at me and saying, “you do what?”-like I’m crazy. But you encourage me to “own it” – like the writer told you to do about your writing abilities. Did you find people thinking you were crazy for loving organization-loving to organize some else’s mess? I actually find it very rewarding work. Thank you again.
hsmominmo says
Organizer, Writer, Girl Who Loves to Laugh, whatever you want to call yourself, please just keep on doing what you do here and being who you are! You’ve been a great blessing to this organizationally-challenged woman and I thank you for it.
Logan@LifeforDessert says
Laura,
I loved this post and mostly because you said in it what I was able to spend an entire session speaking about at Allume. Allume sessions will be posted this week, and I’d be honored if you’d take a moment to listen to my session on Using your Blog For Real Life Discipleship. The fact is that we’re not necessarily all “writers” per say, but in this space, you do write, and you write about the passions that the Lord has given to you. Your writing is discipleship because you’re sharing the gifts that the Lord has given you. You don’t have to be a “writer” to be able to disciple…and my friend, I for one am SO proud that you are functioning within the giftings that the Father has appointed specifically to you! Much love and keep on keeping on with the passions that you have!
Kim Jemmott says
I found you a couple of weeks ago and love your blog. I admit that I have been yearning to become more organized. Living in a small space has it’s unique challenges. Just this week I cleaned out and organized under my bathroom sink and I feel really excited to tackle other things. There is a long road ahead,thank you for getting me started..