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Wednesday, September 30, 2015

On Being Messy

I have a confession to make. I am a messy person. I wo the "Messiest Room Award" my junior year of high school. It takes me days if not weeks to unpack from a trip. There is a pile of clothes on my chair right now. There are dust bunnies the size of dust mammoths looming underneath my couch. It is a problem and I have yet to deal with it.
I should preface this, post a little before someone misconstrues what I am saying . The mess that I am talking about is not coming from creative endeavors or enjoyable activities. Those type of messes I fully support! I love doing creative projects and there is certain amount of stuff and mess that comes with doing them. What I am talking about is clutter. A more accurate title would be "On Being a Slob." Just being all around messy and untidy.
I have struggled with this problem for a long time. I was not a neat kid. I maintained a decent room in high school and for parts of college because I had RAs and I could get written up for not cleaning. Now that I am married and I have my own home, I do not have that external pressure pushing me to clean. My husband is messy as well and he really does not care what I do. It is nice because I can blow stuff off and he does not get mad but it is bad because he does not push me to get better in this area.
Most of the time the mess does not bother me. However, as life gets more hectic and I become more stressed, the mess starts to pull me down. When things are fine, the pile of dirty clothes on the floor is no big deal. When I am running late and I have "nothing" to wear, that pile is the bane of my existence.
It also limits my social life. Even though I am usually ok with the messiness, I do not want people to be at my house when it is messy. Getting ready for visitors can take days if I have let it get really bad. It makes me self-conscious when people come over and I have not cleaned. I know that my value is not tied to the cleanliness of my home and I should feel comfortable being "real." The messiness is not what causes me to feel awkward. It is the fact that the mess is a visual sign of how lazy I am.
I think that is why the mess bothers me. It throws my flaws in my face. My house is messy because I do not use my time well. I used to not think that it was just a personality trait but lately I have been really convicted of that fact. I am not that person who is frantically trying to make time for the important things. My life is jammed packed with activities or work.  I am simply lazy. I watch too much TV or stare at Instagram too long. I am also horrible about not putting something away as soon as I am done with it. I will drop clothes on the floor instead of put them in my hamper. I do not go that little extra mile on the small tasks that would make such a difference. This is incredibly frustrating to me because on the whole, I am a pretty conscientious person. So why can I not do this?
Part of me says, "Just embrace the mess!" Life is not about spotless floors or perfectly put together room. Plus, if I am just ok with stuff then it really knocks our. Another part cringes though at the sight of everything. That is why I cannot let it go. On some level it does bother me so I have to deal with it.
I am not perfect. I will not ever be perfect but in this area, I need to change. I am much more content when my house is clean and organized. It is just hard to stay motivated to get there. Maybe putting it out there to the world will be the fire that I need to get going.
We shall see.

Anyone out there super messy as well? Or are you a neat freak who is having a heart attack looking at these photos? What is your strategy for staying on top of house work?

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