Pause

Last week, I had a quick errand. It was to the Container Store, to buy a belt-hanger for my closet if you must know. And yes, I went in, bought the one thing, and got out of there.

That’s not the point.

The point is that the errand was quick. I didn’t want it to fill my day, or even my morning.

I drove there, parked my car in the parking lot, locked the car, and started walking toward the store. I was in the middle of fumbling with my purse to put my car keys in my purse — it’s one of those purses with fiddly toggle-closure pockets on the outside for my phone and lipstick. I was walking, fiddling with the key pocket, when I stopped.

No. Not like that.

I paused.

I thought about what I was doing, looked at the keys in my hand, looked at my purse, undid the toggle, put my keys in my purse, and redid the toggle. It took five seconds.

Focus.

I went into the store, went straight to what I was looking for, bought it, walked out, went straight to my car without having to search the parking lot for it, and unlocked it without searching for my keys in my purse.

30 minutes, there and back, including drive time. Not the whole morning.

I made space to do what I really meant to do, which was to clean up the shelf in my closet where all the purses I have ever owned were cram-jammed on top of each other, clean the trash out of each and every purse that I do use, get rid of the ones I never use, and make it so that I can change from one purse to another depending on my mood and what shoes I’m wearing.

I’m not the lady with 100 purses; I have seven or eight that I really like including a few fun bags a friend gave me a while ago when she knew I was in desperate need of a pick-me-up. Being able to swap them out easily is a small thing, but it’s also a big thing.

I also found out what happened to all my lipsticks.