Saturday, April 9, 2016

Ultimate Blog Challenge: Day Nine: Extreme Decluttering

Saying goodbye to the past by releasing objects, emotions, and experiences lets you take charge of your future. Whether your clutter is physical, emotional or spiritual, it can block your path and prevent you from molding the life you want. Today, I gave away Rolyk's wheelchair and walker, with his blessing.

I felt elated and apprehensive as I loaded them into Zach Sayre's SUV for him to take to Rebel and Divine UCC, along with some gently used clothing, shoes, and about 120 pounds of canned food that my coworker, Ruth "Ollie" Hood, and her fantastic anonymous neighbors had collected. Zach Sayre is the Sunday Dinner Coordinator at the church. Rebel and Divine UCC serves QUILTBAG youth when they age out of the foster care system or get tossed out of their homes. QUILTBAG stands for queer, unidentified, intersex, lesbian, transgender, bisexual, asexual and gay. Rebel and Divine UCC also serves everyone in the neighborhood surrounding East Sheridan and 10th Street in Phoenix, Arizona. Rebel and Divine UCC has an upcoming all you can eat Waffle Brunch Fundraiser on Saturday, April 16, 2016, between 9 AM and 1 PM. Tickets are $10.

I told Zach about Rolyk's recovery from long-term illness and told him that the wheelchair and walker come with a blessing of healing and renewal to whoever receives and uses them. I hope whoever receives them recovers fully, just like Rolyk has.

For anyone who cares for someone with a long-term illness, hope can seem foolish, but hope keeps you going when everything else fails. When things were at their worst, and Rolyk lost the ability to stand and walk, we found motivation in music, movement and inspirational videos of other people who had gone from being invalids or near-invalids to full recovery. Rolyk found bodybuilder Kai Green, on YouTube, and I had already come across Arthur Boorman, a disabled Gulf War veteran who had used yoga to recover. We also came across a video by Within Temptation called "The Whole World Is Watching," about a motorcyle rider's recovery from a severe accident. Once he saw those, Rolyk got up, one small change at a time, started doing chair-based exercises, then graduated to a heavy bag workout, and finally, what Rolyk calls Free Movement, which is acting like a kid, waving your arms around, dancing, playing ball, and just having fun. Rolyk lost over 100 pounds between June 2015 and March 2016. Rolyk's diet plan was also a big part of his recovery: little to no animal fat or animal protein, and eating only healthy things, and only as much of those as you can stand. Find our other recipes at Heritage and Home or Tempe Frugal Life


2 comments:

  1. I love, love, love to hear encouraging stories of healing and recovery like that one! And I completely agree with you about the power of decluttering. Also, I am a fellow dreamer and have taken some classes in the school of What the Hell Were You Thinking? :)

    Nice to be on this UBC journey with you!

    Jeanine

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