Do you remember the Friends episode where Chandler breaks into Monica’s secret closet? While there’s debate between Joey and Chandler about what could be behind the door (Richard, lots of bugs, etc), they are shocked to learn what is actually behind obsessive compulsive organizer and cleaner Monica’s closet door: a hot mess.
Let me start out by saying that I am not an obsessive-compulsive cleaner or orgnanizer (although BF would pay big bucks if I was). I’m just reasonably clean and sorta organized. But I LOVE organizing closets. It’s my thing. Want to purge and organize? Invite me over. Please. For my sake. Not yours. Not sure what it is about closets but making and keep them organized gives me a big ole’ sense of satisfaction. I think it’s about creating order in a pretty much orderless world (or, at least, my world is orderless). I’ll leave the analysis to someone else; I’ll just say that organized closets thrill me.
Except in the old, little cottage, there aren’t many closets (and all of the closets we do have were added on in a renovation that was done before we bought the house so they’re kind of random closets, but whatever). For a long time, the four total closets were throughly organized. Each closet had its function, including a little storage closet in what was then the guest room that I called the gift closet. It held wrapping paper, packaging boxes, scissors, tape, bows, and gifts that I bought early for upcoming birthdays and holidays. Sometimes, I would just open the door to that closet and admire it’s sparseness and purpose. Because, maybe, I am a little crazy.
And then the guest room became Happy’s room and the gift closet got over taken by things that can’t fit into Happy’s room right now (aforementioned little cottage) but that we might want to get to quickly (toys, clothes a size bigger then Happy needs folded into a Rubbermaid container) and then I started throwing things that needed filing in there, and books- all sorts of books, and all the artwork that gets sent home from preschool, and things got further and further out of control, until one day last week, I looked in the gift closet whose sparse neatness used to be my closet crown jewel and found this…
And I thought, girl, you need an intervention.
So, I’m intervening. The very first order of business was creating a gift depot. Basically, we bought a pantry door organizer, installed it on the back of this door, and I placed all my wrapping supplies there. Now, I have to wade in further. So overwhelmed by the state of the closet (and the amount of shredding that can now be done because I’ve waited so long to file anything that I put in there for filing), I’ve decided to take it in parts: one shelf a day for this week until it’s done. Then, hopefully, it’ll be so orderly that I can once again open the door and admire tidy shelves when everything else feels out of control.
Now, I can’t be the only one with such a confession- you know the kind confession that actually rails against your understanding of yourself. What’s yours?
If it were up to me, I would never make the bed, and clean clothes have stayed in the laundry basket (right beside my dresser) for weeks. Oh boy do I ever feel better.