So here’s an update from my radically-being-simplified, done-with-ditches, climbing-every-mountain life. Well, first I should give a little back story.
Let me ‘splain.
I turn 30 this year, in 2011. Yup. These are the last 6 months of me being in my twenties, and I know it’s silly, cliched, etc., etc., but this whole turning-30 thing seems like a big deal.
A big fat hairy deal.
Like, hey, Annie, if you haven’t accomplished XYZ by now, it just ain’t gonna happen.
Well.
I know, mentally, that is not entirely actually true.
But the large 30 leering at me has scared me into intense bouts of introspection, as in, even more introspection than usual. Which means, for me, a lot of introspection.
[It also might have something to do with the upcoming birth of our 4th child, which is scheduled to happen exactly 42 days before my birthday. Funny, I had wanted to be done with this whole childbearing business by 30, but our scheduling was a little off, and we thought having #4 NOW would be too much so we were going to wait a few years, have the last baby or two, and then, voila!, be done before I turned 35, which was a nice compromise I thought. Alas, birth control is obviously not our strong point. We are pregnant NOW. Baby #4 cometh, and he/she (we will find out TOMORROW) cometh NOW. Which means I have about 5 months left to figure out this birth control bidness... Anyway. Long tirade just to say that there's nothing like the upcoming birth of a child to get you thinking about what's important in life.]
Back to the Back Story:
I’ve long thought of myself one of those naturally organized people. (At times I hear that other people think this about me, too, to which I can only say Please please plzzzze don’t open the closet doors in my house. Or the laundry room door. Or, come to think of it, the bathroom door.)
Naturally organized, however, I AM resoundingly NOT.
Maybe it’s not me.
Maybe it’s my husband.
My daughter.
My son.
My other son.
My tendency to over-commit.
My attempts to cram a 30-hour-per-week freelance writing business into my life along with me, my husband, daughter, son #1, son #2, and various other (over-) commitments.
Mebbe, mebbe, mebbe…
Or maybe all these things are simply signs of the GLARINGLY OBVIOUS FACT that I am NOT, nor have I ever been, a naturally organized person.
Now, I am kind of logical. Analytical. Not really emotional, or at least not obviously so. I don’t usually freak out in moments of panic. I don’t tear up in moments of sorrow. (I wait until later, strangely inappropriate times. Like, why couldn’t I just cry when I was standing at the grave site, why am I crying NOW in the grocery store line?) I adore books. I hate, despise, detest, and abhor clutter. I like modernesque/contemporary/minimalist/streamlined style interior design & furniture & decor.
All of these attributes/traits/likes somehow, in my addled little unorganized brain, added up to me being a naturally organized person.
‘Cept, strangely enough, I couldn’t ever seem to carry my natural giftedness over into my real, unorganized life.
Like this:
- I don’t have A junk drawer. I have a kitchen FULL of junk drawers. Maybe 2 of the drawers don’t actually qualify as junk drawers, leaving them the sole burden of functioning as regular, usable drawers. That’s a lot of pressure to put on 2 drawers, and I’m afraid they’re going to succumb soon, just give in and become junk drawers like the rest of the kitchen… It’s so hard to have a higher standard.
- I don’t have a baby book, or for that matter an organized photo album, for any of my three children. I feel like this is some sort of parenting crime. I hope they won’t be scarred forever because they can’t flip through a book and look at their little footprints and little lock of hair (well there would be none in Mara’s case) and read all the cute little facts about their first little weeks of existence. I feel bad. Really. I do.
- My favorite way to deal with papers (i.e., letters invitations bills magazines flyers coupons notes important-documents-like-birth-certificates invoices contracts tax-information etc.) is to place them in a stack on the nearest flat surface. When the stack gets too tall, I move it to a tall surface near a wall, so the stack can lean on the wall.
Eh. Lest you feel sorry for me, though, let me clarify that rather than being disappointed, sad, sorrowful, hurt, petulant, or bitter over discovering that I am not, after all, a naturally organized person, I am, in fact, relieved. That, or I am repressing the grief the better to deal with this life-altering trauma and next week I will end up crying in the grocery store line.
We’ll see.
That turned out to be a lot of back story. I’m going to have to save the update for tomorrow.
(Didja get that cliffhanger ending? All my writing books say to do that. Let me know if it works, k?)
Photo: Uwe Hermann.