Dead Fish in a Messy Room

I gave a speech in 7th grade detailing the true story from my past.  (The speech required the use of a sign/prop, and I created my own using cotton balls.  I got teased about that even through high school...)  Ordinarily, cleaning a messy room would not result in speech class inspiration, but this was no ordinary chore...

I was in third grade, and my mom and dad gave me a fish tank for Easter.  (See - it's already a great story!)  My brother - big spender that he was - gave me 8 fish for my tank.  By the end of that month, or maybe the next, I was done being a pet owner.  I did not like the fish or having to clean the tank.  At this point, I must admit that I wanted the fish to die...not my proudest moment.  Luckily, the fish did not feel unwanted, for they seemed to live forever.  A few months later, after several fish had died, I noticed one of the fish was missing.  I came up with all sorts of scenarios for how the fish disappeared: The fish had died, and my parents removed it without my knowing; one of the remaining fish had eaten the missing fish; or perhaps the fish had been sucked into the filter.  Whatever the cause, it remained a mystery to me.  

Flash forward:  A couple weeks later, I was cleaning my room...Now, it's important to note here that I had a very wonderful system for cleaning my room:  I would push the debris into equal-sized, evenly-spaced piles on the floor of my room, and I would sit down and go through the piles, creating more sub-piles to put away.  (Apparently, I had a very messy room!)  So, after the pile-making, I sat down to go through one when I noticed that I had sat on something.  I stood up and brushed off my behind, sending something fuzzy across the room.  I went over to see what it was, and I ran out of my room shouting.  In case you haven't figured it out, I had sat on my dead, moldy/fuzzy fish.  Remember that it had been a couple of weeks since the fish disappeared.  (Now you see where the cotton in my speech came from:  I drew a fish and glued the cotton over the body, so only the head and tail were visible.)  I'm still not sure if the fish jumped out of the tank or what, but this story has stuck with me for a long time...

Over the past couple weeks, I have been remembering this story quite often.  There are times when I am cleaning my home that feel like I am just making a bigger mess.  It could be my method (see above), but I often feel like things get messier before they can be clean.  

This is how I feel mentally and emotionally right now.  I know I am not at my best in any aspect of my life, but I feel like I am going through a spring cleaning - emotionally, mentally, and physically, perhaps even spiritually.  I have every hope and confidence that I will end up on the brighter side of life, with my heart, body and soul more in tact and healthy than before.  To get to that point, however, I feel like my heart and soul are in piles across the floor.  

At times, I have not wanted to approach these piles.  Wouldn't it just be easier to leave things messy than to put them in their proper place?  But I have done enough "surface cleaning" in my life...If I truly want to get rid of the mess, I have to get dirty and go through the piles.

I just have to be on the lookout for the hidden fish on the floor...