We arrived from Tokyo with one big suitcase.  It’s been fascinating to create a household from scratch.  To not have a junk drawer.  To not own any nails, tacks, scissors, tape, or little metal twisty things.  To have only my most reliable clothes hanging in the closet.  For my daughter to be playing with her favorite dollies in a dollhouse made of paper towel rolls and cardboard boxes.  (She loves it.)

After taking care of little things like beds to sleep in and a couch to sit on, I turned my attention to setting up an office.  I decided I’d get by with a little desk for my little laptop.  After all, I was trying to balance beauty with economy, not to mention speed.  Only the desk was so little, I had to sort of perch to write on it.  I could sit and type OR scribble on a notepad– but not both at the same time.  There was no storage, and I was cramming files into little cardboard holders.

I stepped back and took a look.  I decided it wasn’t optimal, but I could make it work.  Still, I did at least need a file cabinet.  I guessed I’d make do with an old used metal one.  So I walked into my new favorite thrift store…and gasped.

There it was, sitting in the back, an enormous behemoth of a desk.  Two desks, really, that fit together with cupboards and a file cabinet and shelves.  It was like an entire office made out of furniture.  It was also white.  And pretty.

And yet I didn’t think I could buy it.

I already had a desk!  (More like a dressing table.)  This was so huge!  (In the most fabulous way.)  It was decadent!  (Not really.  The whole thing cost what a nice new file cabinet alone would have cost.)

Something about this desk stopped me in tracks.  I couldn’t believe how freaked out I was by it.  After circling the store anxiously a few times and picking up many china teapots, I sat down in a brocade chair and did some investigating.

What on earth was going on?  Why was I hyperventilating?  The desk seemed so….serious.  And yet it was calling to me!  The thought of buying it for myself was utterly delicious.  And utterly terrifying.

I tried to think about it logically.  It wasn’t the price tag; this was a thrift store, after all.  It had something to do with the size.  I couldn’t stuff this in my car and trundle it home; it would need to be delivered.  Again, no real problem there.  It was big, but it would fit perfectly against the wall with the french windows.  I could sit there looking out at the green park.

I walked up to the counter three times to tell them I’d buy it, and each time I chickened out.

I finally realized what was going on.  As long as I had a little desk, with a little laptop, and a little stool, all the work I did there would somehow  be  diminished.  I could be something of a dilettante, a hobbyist, a dabbler.  I could be a frazzled temporary single parent who was just barely managing to keep her cute little business going over in a corner.

This big desk, with its shelves, cupboards, space for files, and built-in surge protector and printer port, upped the ante.  It said that this was work that took up space.  It deserved to take up physical room in my home.  It deserved real tools that serve a real business.

And so in that moment I got to choose.  Did I want to give myself a nice physical reason to keep my work and my business small, crowded, and chaotic?  Did I need some nice tangible excuses for why I couldn’t meet deadlines, keep commitments, or be professional?

Buying that desk scared the crap out of me, because it was such a tangible representation of my intentions for my business, my wealth, and the importance of my work.

I love it very, very much.

As I get ready to teach this next round of The Queen Sweep, I appreciate the beautiful irony of having to choose so clearly for myself to shape my own life from the outside in.

This is exactly what we work on, over five weeks– we shift our internal landscape by cleaning up our external one.  So for all the women who will join me on this next round, this is my declaration of intent: I’m not scrabbling, perching, or dabbling.  I sit at my big beautiful desk and do work that feels big and beautiful to me.  And I’m not even  embarrassed to say that out here in front of people and everybody.

What about you?  What are you ready to say?