What a mess

I'm untidy. I really know how to let a mess build up and then recoil in horror one day, at the thought of how long it is going to take to sort out.

I don't know why I am like this, but I know I have always been this way.

When I lived at home, it became almost a challenge for me to not tidy my room. Something to do with rebellion. I remember my bedroom being literally COVERED in mess. There was absolutely no inch of carpet visible, I would stand on many breakable things to get from my door to my bed. I enjoyed the challenge. I enjoyed the discovery of items forgotten, when having to dive into the mess looking for something treasured or urgently needed. I ignored the constant nagging from my parents to tidy it up, I believed the mess gave my room a homely feel and it showed that I had character and it was this line I used for many years as my pathetic defence. I saw it that while the items lay on the floor, it was preventing the dust from getting into my carpets, thereby preserving the condition of the flooring and therefore it was of financial benefit that my room remained untidy.

Every xmas eve, I was threatened with Santa Claus doing a no-show in my room if I didn't sort it out. So of course I did, but by 11pm I had to have finished it. Damn Santa, he could just leave the goods outside my door, what's it to him what's behind it? Why does it have to be immaculate, surely it just shows that I am at least using some of the stuff he dropped off last year, if he can see it out of the cupboards.

I think it must have been when I was sixteen and suddenly doing 120 sit ups every morning was the most important thing in my life, that I tidied up. I needed the space. It was on my terms.

In adulthood, I have discovered I am still messy. I need to be in the mood to tidy up. I wish i was someone who tidied as they went, but I seem to be missing this ability. However, it's not to say I can't and wont change. I think the problem is that I am overwhelmed by what there is to do, the sheer amount of papers to tidy away. I chip at it but it's not even touching the sides. I have tidy ups quite often and I bag up things that need actioning and filing and then sling it with the other ten sainsbury's bags full of previous "needs actioning"'s. So all of this "needs actioning" stuff never does and I wonder why my life is not in order sometimes.

I'm scatterbrained. I'm easily distracted. An example of this is: Thirsty, so I went to the Kitchen to get a drink. But the water filter was empty. To refill it meant moving the washing out of the sink. So while the filter is filling, I wander into the Lounge and notice a magazine I've barely read. So I start on that and notice some empty opened envelopes, which I decide to bin. Taking these to the bin, I realise that I have not yet made my drink. So magazine and washing up forgotten, I take the drink to my room and I'm off on another tangent. Is this my personality, or this something I can work on to change? Because I annoy myself sometimes with my skittishness. Is it a normal thing that you see something out of it's place and just walk past it, that it doesn't annoy you or immediately strike you as out of place?

But then a few weeks down the line, a terrible day at work, not enough change to get a chocolate bar or coffee that might just have rectified this shocker of an attitude and suddenly every thing is obvious, every area of mess is skin itchingly irritating and there begins a huge blitz, which clears a large chunk of the mess. The initial stress busting clearance feeling soon wears off, peace is restored and the "Ok I'm done, can't be bothered to sort this out today" returns to the forefront of my mind.

I'm lucky I have a boyfriend. I'm lucky I haven't somehow lost my cats in the mess. The other day my kitten disappeared for 4 hours. I could not find him anywhere, dispite my voice going hoarse trying to call for him. I thought he's dead, he must be. My boyfriend looked at the waist high pile of clothes i've yet to put away and said deadpan "did you do anything to this pile today?" I said, yes I did, I quickly upturned it earlier looking for something, to which he said "you didn't crush the cat in there?". If I had been able to take that sentence for the intention it was meant, I would have laughed. But instead I was struck by horror of this possibility and began throwing all the clothes on to the bed, practically in tears at the thought that he could have suffocated by high street clothing. Of course he wasn't in there, he was hiding out behind the fridge (like you do). Still it did make me think.

This weekend, I PROMISE I'll have a tidy up :-)