I am a 36 year-old married woman with two cats/demons and I live like a college student. It’s not so much that I am having keggers every night, but more so a general and perpetual state of clutter. Before the husband deployed to Iraq and we lived together, things were still a little underdeveloped on the tidiness front, but I’ve taken it to new and unforeseen heights. The mess that I am capable of generating in even a short time span is really quite impressive. Mother Nature could learn a few things from me about catastrophic destruction. It’s not that I don’t want to live in a clean house or didn’t have a good example. My Mother cleaned constantly and cleaned both kitchen and bath nightly in addition to weekly household strip downs. At least I inherited her love of baking, right?
I know I am a slob. I have always been a slob even as a small child. I frequently rush from one thing to another leaving tasks in an unfinished state of chaos. Either that, or in the process of cleaning or putting clothes away I will suddenly develop an overwhelming urge to spend 4.5 hours scrubbing, organizing and redoing a closet. Somehow on the way to accomplishing normal chores like laundry or unloading the dishwasher I leave a path of domestic wreckage even a teenager would admire. My clothes are strewn about my bedroom, hanging from every knob, hook, chair, and lamp. The dresser and footboard have been converted into clothing staging areas and there is a pile of clothes needing to be hung up sitting on a chair right next to the closet. I can be so close to task completion, then run out focus and forget to finish the job.
Contributing to the problem is that I kind of like clutter. Clutter feels homey to me and cozy. I dream of a large, spacious penthouse apartment with modern furnishings and a minimalist appearance, but unfortunately I am a bit of pack rat and sentimentalist so sparse isn’t really my forte. Because I have so many trinkets I’ve saved or collected over the years, I love buying stuff to put stuff into. If it is a decorative box, jar, or bowl I want it and I will fill it. There is no end to my collection of things I cannot bear to part with or home décor accessories I’ve picked up at one store or another just waiting for the right shelf or color scheme to display it. I’ve gone through color phases, neutral phases, glass phases, bamboo phases, metal phases . . . you name it and I will produce a collection of accessories ready to decorate for it.
In between the clutter, I have dust and cat hair and scraps of paper with things written on them that I then immediately misplace or forget what it’s for and keep in case I remember. The irony, is that I really don’t dislike cleaning itself, I just dislike not being able to focus on one specific thing with the intensity I want. When I make the time, I will clean with a determination and thoroughness my Mother would be proud of. Sadly, while there are days my floors are so clean you could eat off them, you may not be able to find a way past the clutter to get to a barren spot. It’s not that I’m a hoarder, we don’t have junk like that. I’m not secretly collecting trash or old cat litter, although with two cats possessing a seemingly unending ability to produce feline waste, there are days when it might appear that way. It’s more that most of my furniture and accessories are a hodge podge collected over the years and lacking a certain unity to bring it all together. I have art from all over the world sitting on top of bookcases just begging for the chance to hang on a wall. I have a handmade instrument picked up in Cambodia that is currently in a few pieces scattered about my bedroom. A rug I’m not using is rolled up and stored on the balcony. An antique chair passed down through my family is carefully wrapped in mover’s plastic and awaiting repair for a loose leg. And a few sad remnants of old Ikea furniture still feebly fulfill their purpose while calling out for retirement.
Living alone means no one has to see your dirt and that is freeing in a way. I can take off my clothes before showering and leave them on the floor, then three days later realize I’m still stepping over those same clothes as I get in and out of the shower. A book, finally read lay on the bench in the foyer where it has been for six weeks, just three feet from a bookcase. It’s not that I’m lazy, it’s that I don’t care. We don’t have children so there are no little fingers getting into things or dropping pacifiers and putting them right back in their mouths. I just don’t have the motivation. When I know people will be coming over I will make the effort to both clean and organize and each and every time, I marvel at how great it makes me feel to be living like an adult and then within a day I’m walking past what could pass as the discarded itinerary of the previous 24 hours.
I want to be neat and tidy. I’d like to have people come to my home without either needing three hours notice or a blindfold. I don’t know why it is so difficult to pick up after myself when I seemed so hasty to chastise my husband for being messy as I picked up his shoes/glass/jacket/beer bottle. Spiraling out of control the last six months I continually tell myself that this will be the week I get control of the clutter, only to find myself making the same speech a week later. I don’t even have a job to use as an excuse for why I cannot make the time. Now, however, as employment looms 48 hours away, I think I’ve hit rock bottom. This morning, while sipping tea on the balcony facing peacefully away from the clutter of the interior, I looked down at my feet to see one of my cats walking about with a pair of dirty underwear stuck to her fur. That’s really too much even for me. Sadly, the cat’s left hind quarters had to be shaved, but what choice did I have, bathing a cat is so much work.
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