Even still my way of dealing with messes falls into one of three categories:
- Clean it (meaning put it away, fold it, wash it)
- Ignore it until Brian threatens to clean it himself (which translates roughly to throwing whatever it is away)
- Throw it in boxes and hide it.
I have a lot of boxes. And totes. Because they look nicer and more organized.
And yet, I refuse to say that my house is a disaster. Because the messes come and go, they shift from room to room and vary in size depending on the day, the week or the month.
But I can’t tell you that it’s not cluttered. Because it is. Painfully so. The moment I walk in the house I’m immediately dragged into the piles of clean clothes that need folded, the dirty ones that need washed, the mounds of school papers waiting to be dealt with, bills, things that I claim must-go-to-Goodwill-someday-but-not-today, and every ounce of it makes my head and body ache.
I used to be able to ignore it, pretend it didn’t exist. Once I accepted it, I almost reveled in it. I’ve made excuses for the clutter, called it disorganization, I’ve let clutter take me over mentally, and even poked fun at my inability to be clutter free (I still think being a visualizing surface abuser has an awesome ring to it).
But just because I like the ring to my title, or even claiming that creative people tend to be cluttered doesn’t mean those are good excuses for it. The clutter is starting to eat away at my home, my life, my work, my kids’ lives, and it keeps Brian from me in many, many ways.
In short: I think it might be killing me… or at least my ability to think clearly and function (not to mention be creative).
So I vow over and over again to strive for a simple, less complicated, less cluttered existance. I started reading books, lots of books on Home-Ec, Living a Simple Life, Organization… you name it, I’ve probably picked up and thumbed through it only to discover that those books don’t describe me or what I want at all.
That’s where Pesi Dinnerstein and her new book A Cluttered Life; Searching for God, Serenity, and my Missing Keys comes in. While I don’t know that I’m searching for God (I couldn’t find him in the piles of stuff if I had to anyway), I immediately identified with Pesi (and her search for her keys (funny story about those. Remind me to tell you later).
