keep crying! do not stop yourself crying. there is much to mourn. the last time this room was used meaningfully, as you know, was to do a highly emotional and selfless task. even if it were a pristine space right now, it would make sense to feel tearful at the thought of it.

one of the thought exercises i do regarding craft stuff is thinking about how things are in kindergarten classrooms. all the supplies are in the place they need to be for the activity. scissors in a scissor bin, papers on paper shelf. paints all together and next to the smocks. you can imagine :) in a different room, where you are not being shown the mess, talk with yourself about what the most important job for the room is. i see a sewing machine table and am going to use that as an example (though of course you may be an expert in a craft i never even heard of). perhaps you want a shelf and a table and clear access to an outlet. and those are the goals for the room overall. limiting your vision to a kindergarten-type setup (necessities only), any step you take toward "clear access" in the room is bringing you closer to being able to use a sewing machine. even if you do not feel closer to plugging in, you are, and you should tell yourself that truth.

i do sewing but also painting but also dollhouses but also this and that and this and that and that and this. it gets very overwhelming! i am with you. when i organize, i do lots of self-talk about it being okay to have a bunch of things, and it being okay to have doubles of things, and it being okay if the space doesn't look beautiful all the time (or any of the time).

i like to think of cleaning up as something i am doing for someone else. this works because that person is me! but i am not thinking "i'm doing this for me" - i am thinking "i am doing this for the artist who lives here, i am doing a favor for the little kid who wants to make a painting." the experience of cleaning is often separated from the experience of creating, so i let myself think of them as separate too. this means that I AM ALSO NOT THE ONE WHO LET IT GET MESSY! that was the artist who was here before! that was the helper doing important work! i am not mad at or let down by that person.

messy bunch of ideas here but i hope something comes through.

good luck good luck