A Break from Organization

I finally got the rest of the house back together yesterday. The closet cleaning was very difficult on it. I had piles of stuff everywhere! All during the day, the children will bring stuff to me and ask where to put it. I inevitably tell them to go put "it" in my room. WHY???? Why do I do that? It is certainly easier in the short term, but am I so caught up in what I am doing that I no longer have long term vision? My room could be spotless when I wake up and enjoy my first cup of coffee, but somewhere around the afternoon cup, a simple glance into my room says that I have made several short term thinking errors and that I now have a long term mess! So, I tend to throw that stuff in a box and put it where? THE CLOSET! So, the past bout of organizing brought all of this stuff, junk really, back to the light of day and mostly to the garbage bag.


Flylady says that we will feel better, lighter even, as we release clutter (from clutter jail?). I don't feel that way at all. I feel stupid for creating the mess to begin with. I find myself asking enlightening questions like, "Why do I keep this stuff? What was I thinking? What kind of clutter, knick-knack free example am I setting for the kids?"

I have a reputation for being unsentimental, even a little bit cold toward things that normally promote feelings of giddiness and warmth. Maybe it was the selling of my wedding cake toppers for a buck in a yard sale that started this, maybe it was my flat refusal to hang on to anything for the "just in case." I don't know. I think it had a lot to do with me and DH living in a 700 sq ft trailer and I was smart enough to know that took up a most of that space with things necessary for survival. Things like a toilet and a big bathtub rank higher than a Ziploc baggie of plastic cake toppers. :-D

Then I moved to a new house. It smelled like fresh 2 x 4's, carpet, and paint. It boasted 834 sq ft MORE than my previous abode. We moved our meager furnishings into the house and had completely empty cabinets and wall space. We even had an almost completely empty room. Something in me snapped. I must fill those cabinets in the kitchen with every type of gizmo known to make cooking easy, enjoyable, and possibly would put dinner together on its own after I left the room! I must fill the bedrooms with guest room stuff. I now had closets in which to keep things I would have previously given away. My dh, I think, was worse than me. But after a few months, the rooms were soon filled with children and then my brother. And all of their stuff, combined with my and DH's stuff, is A LOT of stuff. Suddenly 1534 sq ft, seems cramped and cluttered. Finding anything became an all day event and a way for the children to make money. "Mommy will give whoever brings me the baby's shoes a quarter!"

Frustration over the loss of any kind of savings and not being able to find stuff "my own darn self", has led to several bouts of purging, but no real changes in behavior. Maybe this time it will. Maybe I can, once again, look at knick knacks given to me by others with disdain in my heart and a faux grateful smile on my face. (I can't hurt their feelings by telling someone that I don't want the resin bird sitting on a tree branch, now can I?) I can be thankful that someone thought of me and then quietly re-gift or donate the product of their gesture.

Now that I have probably scared anyone from ever getting me a present of any kind for any reason, I will go, and be comforted in the knowledge that I could have just saved my friends and family some money, even if it is Dollar Tree money, and I can still lay claim to having mantle space.