An Organized Mess

First I want to say I am keeping busy with busy work.   Why because it helps me to cope with the death of our little grandson.   Also because I am an organized person and always have been.   I like things in their place and am often annoyed when people get things out of place and don’t  replace what they get out to use back and just go off and leave things lie as they left them that creates a problem for me.  I don’t like clutter and piles of things.    I grew up with a dad who was a junker, he was always hauling things in and nailing things to walls and trees and piles of stuff outside and inside sheds.  It bugged me and I was alway going around trying to  make things neat and tidy as possible.

It still annoys me.  There are times I ignore it as long as I can sometimes it is days or a few weeks.   Mostly when I am really super tired.  Stressed to the max and can’t function.  For example I have a game closet where games go and certain toys for my grandkids to use when they are here.   I tell them they can get a game out to play but to put it away when done where it belongs.   Some of the children respect that and do as they are asked.    However a couple of them just let the game and pieces set out and run off to do other things.    What results then is someone like baby brother comes along and carts off a few game pieces never to be found again.   So out goes the game.   The children think that is mean of me to toss the game when there are pieces missing but if they are missing, broken or ripped and torn they are no longer any good so out they go.    

I married a Pile It not a poilet  He piles it here and piles it there.    He is a clutter and I love him dearly, we have been married for nearly 40 years and he is perpetually telling me he is going to get organized someday and he has made many attempts to do so but none last for long.   He just cannot stick with the program.  Worse he reads all these how to get organized books and goes around trying to get me to conform to someones idea of what is organized.   He dis-organizes my kitchen or bathroom or pantry with his new idea.  I go to get something I know where it should be and YIKES someone messed my kitchen up.   GRRRRR!   

Over the years I have told him not to mess in my kitchen with his ideas;  Why because when someone is a natural organizer we have our own methods of keeping track of things, where they are and why.   We don’t need those books, we already have our method that works well for us until someone with a book bright idea someone wrote to make a bunch of money and duped the disorgnized person into buying it and they make thier millions while the perso n who  reads it trys to follow it for a time and tries to get everyone else to follow a different method or system than what works for them.  

My husband has actually had me help him get things organized and tidy, it usually lasts about 90 days then I see signs of the pileit guy returning, stacks of odds and ends here and there,  books,  tools, and rags all in one heap.  A box of to be sorted paperwork and some childs toy needing repair with a half eaten apple moldering.    But he has gotten a little better in the last few years in some ares of his life.   Like his clothing is usually kept tidy in our bedroom closet and I don’t do it for him.    However he has learned to keep his hands out of my kitchen, bathrooms and pantry.    And away from my office.  Four times a year I really dig things out and sort and discard and get rid of things that are dead weight or I no longer need or use.   I also have told my grandkids who live with us.  If you want it, respect it.  If you respect it keep it up and put away where it belongs if you don’t want to lose it.   If I see you abusing it or leaving it lay three times it is going to Goodwill and they do.  I start collecting stuff in a bag, they can earn it back twice.  If they keep it up and want it they don’t lose it but after the third time it leaves the house forever.   They are learning to be more appreciative of things they really value.   My husband over the years had learned  if he wants something to be found later that is really important,  he usually gives it to me as I can go right where it should be and get it for him, so long as another has not messed up my system and it has saved us countless hours of distressing over a needed legal paper or check book.   Or other thing that we need for some sort of business coming up.    

I have a well meaning son who tries and to organize my kitchen at times and he has got into trouble doing that.   I tell him to go get his own kitchen.    He means well but his method is not mine.  Interestingly he is a tidy person usually himself and he has a good system that works for him but it is not my system and does not work for me so he has learned to leave my kitchen and pantry alone.   

My point is this there are natural born organizer’s we don’t need books and props to be neat, tidy or keep things in order.   At times even we do get stacked up a bit during times of high stress or busy week or month like during canning season or if the goats are kidding or someone is ill.  But give us a day and we are back to our normal routine and things are neat, tidy and a place for everything and everything in its place.   But we do not need the unorganized persons books, bells and whistles in fact that messes up our already orderly life.   What works for you may and usually does not work for me and remember those who wrote those books often are in a temporary mode of being organized and while things were tidy they wrote a book to sell so they can hire someone else to come in an clean up the messes.      

Because they are not really organized but had a system that worked for a little while.   For some it might help but for the vast majority those books don’t really help. I know because I have a husband, a mother in law,  my dad and some of my children are just not organizers and they have clutter and piles of things and every blue moon or so they decided to do some cleaning and tidying or ask one of us organizers to help them and I have other friends and relatives who just are pack rats and hang on to every little thing, not me,  things are to be used and if no longer useful to be discarded but that only applies to material things not to human beings.    I accept and love them for who they are and tolerate their unorganized state and if they ask I will help them to get things tidy for at least a little while.  I love them anyway because life is not always neat or orderly either.  We don’t live in a perfect world yet and one day I pray soon we shall.