Clutter Sparks My Joy

Marie Kondo isn’t the only neat freak who’s tried to get me to clean up my act.

My older sister, who is up in heaven organizing the clouds by size, shape, and shades of gray, then labeling them according to cirrus, cumulus and when they rained on all the weddings on Long Island, spent my young life trying to instill the mantra of a place for everything and everything in its place. One look in my closets seventy-five years later will tell you how well that worked out.

You’d think clutter sparked my joy.

I know the funny anniversary card I bought for my daughter last year is in one of those closets. Maybe under the stack of twenty-five-year-old decorating magazines I bought the last time I moved? Um, in nineteen-ninety something.

Whoever linked the road to hell and good intentions had my number. If I had a dollar for every time I’ve cleaned out my office and looked at it a half hour later to find I could no longer see the bottom of my desk, I wouldn’t have to work for a living. I’d still be messy but . . .

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It’s not that I don’t try to keep up with the world of the neat and tidy. I have a very dear friend whose home is inviting and neat. She surprised me once when she visited and said that she can’t imagine a teacup ever being out of place in my apartment. I looked at her dumbfounded, thinking you must mean my sister.

But her comment was a testament to my ability to throw things under the bed or stuff them in the nearest closet and will the door not to fall prey to the vagaries of gravity and spill my unruly possessions onto the floor in front of my friends.

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Because if I know company is coming, I throw myself into a frenzy of cleaning so that all is neat as a pin when I open the door.

That’s the way I was raised. My mother was not crazy clean, giving me a phobia about having things out of place. I just don’t remember the beds going unmade or dirty dishes in the sink. She made no bones about hating housework, yet she did it each day in such an unobtrusive way that the house always looked tidy but maybe not ready for a white glove inspection.

However, on Sundays when the aunts and uncles came for tea and a little taste of the creature, out came the vacuum cleaner and dust mop and she whipped that place into shape within an inch of its life. I may not have learned to make my bed each morning, but don’t let the neighbors see the house a mess is stuck in my craw.

I am not one of those people happy to open the door when it rings and have the world see my mess. No, it’s my dirty little secret. I can’t have you see my dirty laundry on the bathroom floor, last night’s dishes in the sink or a few weeks worth of mail scattered over every available surface. Dust bunnies skittering ahead of you when you walk on my dusty hardwood floors. Some people don’t mind if people see their disarray, and God love them, but that is not me.

My mother might put up with my daily mess. But she’d cringe if anyone else saw it, and so would I. Why do I take coats and purses and put them on the bed when friends come over? Why have I been known to throw myself in front of the hall closet as though I’ve a body stuffed in it if people try to hang coats up themselves? Because I’d risk a Richter-size rumble if I open the crowded, jumbled closet. Not to say, the finger-pointing I imagine would ensue at the reveal of my nightmare housekeeping habits.

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Yet, I’m not overly judgmental in a friend’s messy home. And really envious of people whose homes look like the pages of an old-fashioned ladies magazine.

But really, I don’t care how you keep your house, how messy you are or how neat. I just don’t want you to judge me. So I’ll pretend I’m not home if you stop by unannounced, and I haven’t gotten around to straightening up this week. And yes, I know that’s a bad sign.

My dear, departed, best friend Wendy used to mess up her sock drawer just to fit in. Her friends in high school would talk about their weekends on Monday morning and moan that their mothers made them clean their rooms. She never had anything out place but would make a brief, temporary mess to join in on the pity party. Yeah, she’d say, giving a longsuffering eye roll, I had to clean my drawers, too. But in the sixty-one years of our friendship, I never saw a thing out of place in her home.

I’ve lived with five men. My father, my oldest brother for a while in college, two husbands, and that time I lived in sin. All my co-habiters rated above the fold on the neatness score from above average to a wee bit obsessive. Not naming names. In time, each of them had a word with me about my untidy habits. Now I live alone. Draw your own conclusions.

During my last marriage, I came across an article about hoarding with an email address for a hotline. They sent me a questionnaire to see if I qualified for their services. Sorry not sorry they said. My problem was garden-variety clutter, not an obsessive disorder. Good news of a sort, but it didn’t help me find my good pair of shoes in my closet packed with laundry, last year’s stack of clothes to take to a charity shop . . . you get the picture.

My sister lived through the depression, and in WW2 she prayed every night to bring our brothers home and the GI in Italy she would eventually marry. And home they came, safe and sound. When she reminded me of the power of her prayers many years later, I realized she had a strong belief in what she could control in her life. It was that drive to make the world in her image that benefitted all of us. And gave me a complex about being a slob.

Our little brother died when he was five of rheumatic fever before penicillin was discovered, and five years before I was born. Then Rita came down with the infection and had to stay in bed for a year.

She knew how much of life was scary and out of her control. Maybe that’s why she decided that at least she could nail down how she organized her cosmetics and silver and cereal boxes, and she did so with a vengeance.

I also grew up knowing how scary and out of control life could be, but for different reasons. No details necessary, but two marriages later and yada yada yada should give you an idea. Maybe early on I decided that where I put my stuff wasn’t that important. I had other things to watch out for.

But that’s the way I am. I’ve acquired many things and have to cram so much into small spaces. Sometimes it’s hard for me to keep track of where everything is. I was born last in my family of five. Maybe my siblings got all the tidy genes.

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I just know that as I near eighty, with my beloved, overly-organized sister and neatnik friend Wendy gone, the two women closest to me yet worlds different, I still can’t talk about them without tearing up because my heart is so cluttered with feelings.

How typical of me, to have things so messy. Memories, emotions, nothing staying orderly and in its place. The lump in my throat that pops up unbidden when I come across their picture in a crowded drawer. Just when I thought I’d put that bit of grief away where it belonged.

I’ll never get over myself, I know that now. But some messes I won’t touch, because in some ways I do have a place for everything and everything in its place.

I know where the people I love are, even when their gone, somewhere in that ever-expanding storage facility, my heart.

Like everything else in my apartment, it’s a jumble. Of feelings, memories, the pieces of my life.

And it’s going to stay that way forever. I’ve decided that where I put my things is up to me. How I live my life, even if I have to step over last week’s newspapers on the way to the bathroom, that’s who I am. Because at this late date, it’s not how neat I keep my closets and drawers, but how I’ve been able to fill my heart. And that’s one place where clutter sparks my joy.

Life is short, and eternity lasts a long time.

What matters now is where I make room for the important things. In my life, and in my heart.

If you like things neat and tidy, so be it. If clutter sparks your joy, go for it.