Howdy Fellow Scatterbrained Friends!
After 35 1/2 years of dealing with never remembering the right things at the right times, or in the right order, leaving a lifetime of messes in my wake because I forgot what I was doing before moving on to something else. Even as I'm writing this, I had just started to organize my Christmas decorations when yet again I had a brilliant idea that someone out there might find my adventures amusing, horrifying, or maybe, just maybe a little bit helpful. I think for me it is the scariest, because I really need to sit down and be brutally honest with myself. It is so easy to hide my messy life by carefully cropping the photos I take, terrified of the day that I forget to notice something, or if my hubby decides to do his own photo shoots. I'd love for him to take more photos, but I'm terrified that he will reveal our dirty BIG secret to our online friends, and in fact our only friends.
I'd love to give a tour of our home to those said friends, and yet how can I when I can't even stand to look at it myself. I'm tired of having to trip over things, wiggle around everything as if I'm doing some odd gymnastic tricks as I just try to walk between the kitchen and the computer room. It sure doesn't do anything good for my back problems!
As much as I'm sure my mother would love to argue the fact, I am not an innately messy person. I love organizing things in my mind. But once I get around to actually putting those plans into action, my scatterbrained nature quickly takes control. Some time later I realize that I'm overwhelmed by how many decisions I have to make on things I don't know what to do with.
I can pick a thing up, look at it and know that it goes in spot A, but in spot A is something that goes in spot Q, and spot Q has something shoved in it that belongs in spot WXZ... it feels like every space that is supposed to be used for organizing is already taken up by something else that is also out of place. Every time I try and organize things on a larger scale, I feel overwhelmingly overwhelmed. Often my first approach doesn't work so I try another... and another... and another... and another... in the span of about two hours and I'm left with a bigger mess than when I started! Does any of this sound familiar?
Do you want to journey with me? I would like a friend who is wearing the same pair of scatterbrained shoes, you know the ones with mismatched laces that are falling apart because you keep forgetting to get new ones too. You can be sure that we will both stumble, messes will happen, there will be times when we will have to restart everything because life got to be too much. We can celebrate our victories, and cry on each other's shoulder when everything goes to hell. But we won't do it alone because we will have each other. Just take a breath and firmly hold onto the hand I'm holding out.
What? Ah... I saw that flinch you just had, and the deep skepticism I can see in your eyes. You think that someone has never seen messes as bad as yours. I can tell you that I have. I am totally terrified when someone comes to our front door because said door will have to be opened, revealing the disaster that is hidden inside. My in-laws have not been inside for more years than I can remember because I am positively mortified to see their reaction. Even my own family coming in makes me ill because it bothers me that they have to deal with it and worry about me. Trust me, I've really seen probably close to the worst a messy house can offer. Just don't ask to see our second bathroom at the moment. It needs work, a lot of work.
I don't ever expect to outgrow my scatterbrained nature. I'm pretty sure it is hard-wired by now. My goal is to find happiness despite it, find a way to maintain my home so I'd be happy for my family to visit (but not too often, ha!) and give you a grand tour of my small little world once it is no longer a trash heap. I would really like it if a long the way I could have someone walk with me. Someone who understands what it feels like to wake up one day and realize that your life is at the bottom of a pit, and there is clutter, trash, and god knows what else towering so high that sunlight barely pierces it. It feels like the first time in my life that I can start to see the little steps that are ahead leading into a path, like a game trail through a forest, understanding how to reach the clean home I have longed for, full of happiness, order, and space to enjoy instead of being trapped by.
Some of these baby steps I've been taking for a little while, but today I'm sticking my first flag marker in the ground. I'm making the commitment that I will tenaciously finish this journey, no matter how long it takes, or how many times I slide backwards. I'm done with letting my scatterbrained nature control my life.
Are you coming too?
