Tuesday 19 August 2008

Tidy Desk - Tidy Mind

I am a bit alarmed that I may have a case of Bloggers Block. I simply can't find anything useful to write about. I've been busy lately, met lots of people and done lots of things but my ability to write about it all at the moment seems to have left me bereft of all literary musings.

I do notice a pattern with this. A pattern I've lived with since childhood. My state of mind is in symbiosis to my surroundings. If everywhere around me is a mess - I'm a mess. For me, visual order = mental order.

The house is a mess. The children are home from school. I can't expect them to keep it tidy, but I do have trouble coping with keeping an even keel when I'm tripping over lego bricks, stepping over hospital beds made up on the sofa with duvets and pillows and picking up bits of play-dough pancake from the kitchen floor.

I need a retreat.

The retreat is my study. Usually a nice, organised, orderly adult area. I relate to the tidy desk, tidy mind theory. This morning it looked like this. Not only did the desk look like a car had crashed into it, but the entire room.

I feared my head might just cave in at this point.


But cleaning for me is not a swift task. I'm not a tidy up, shove it in one corner, wipe a duster over it kind of woman. It's deep clean or nothing.

And this deep clean took me 3 hours.

But amongst the piles of papers I found the children's school reports and whilst talking to an old friend on the phone found myself comparing notes and exchanging well dones as she read off the reports for her children. I found receipts that needed to be spiked for when I do the household accounts each week, scraps of paper with e-mail addresses for Joshua's friends that he claims to have lost, photographs of me as a toddler and my own school reports.

So, not only did a good clear-up of my study make me feel better in that it left me a virtual zone of peace and tranquility, it also brought back memories of old.

But I'm happier now. My zone is clear, my retreat is mine again and try as I might to make promises never to let it clutter up again, I know it will end up the same in about a month and then the whole process will start again.

4 comments:

Gretchen said...

I love a good before and after! I certainly understand what you mean about how the mess affects everything!

TxGambit said...

I get the same way with mess! I get to shut down mode. You have a cute little space.

Michelle said...

Good girl!! Very tidy....can you come and do mine!! I am the same as you, deep cleaner, so if you saw mine i will be there a while too!!

Mitzi Green said...

i feel the same way. my husband, unfortunately, does not. so we're a bit like a cartoon, where one character goes shlepping about making a mess and the other follows behind him with a broom and dustpan, and eventually beats him over the head with a sledgehammer. whoa--did i say that out loud?