Two nights ago, I sat in my cute little office/parlor, working on my homework assignment for class (this week it’s Monteverdi…trust me, you don’t want to know). Well, I lost my big pencil eraser. Couldn’t find it anywhere, although I had just used it. How’m I gonna write music without an eraser?
Well that just made me mad. I stormed outside to the porch swing, where the Thriller was reading and enjoying the cool of the evening. I shattered his reverie by ranting to him that my office is in such disarray, I can’t find anything — even that which I had used only minutes ago.
“Why can’t I be like you,” I whined. “There’s so much crap in my office, and your office is so neat. You know where everything is. I can’t even find an eraser I had two minutes ago.”
In his wisdom, he replied reassuringly, “Well, I think in minute details. You are a big-picture thinker. And a lot more stuff can get squeezed into a big picture.”
Hmm……
He then offered to help me tear down my office and put it back together again. I took him up on it. Trouble was, I couldn’t decide. I couldn’t decide what to keep, what to throw out (“Oh, I don’t know…I might need that 8 x 10 piece of cardboard someday…”). It was infuriating. My ambivalence, my indecision. I was traumatized.
Seeing my spinning wheels, Thriller suggested I separate things into three boxes: things I use every day, things I use somewhat regularly, and things I hardly ever use. The “hardly ever use” stuff was thrown away, recycled, put in the Goodwill box, or stacked in the eBay pile. (He did the throwing away; it was too painful for me to even watch, even though I pretended to be completely suave and cool about it.)
But you know…after the initial box went to the curb, I started to feel better. I mean a lot better. I was actually not feeling like I’d thrown out important stuff that I was going to need tomorrow because isn’t that just the way things go around this place. Yay!
I don’t know how it happened, but I felt renewed — free. Like someone or something came into my house and took all the baddies away, and isn’t it just a brazzle dazzle day ?
And now I know where everything is.
Heh.
Didn’t we just discuss flying over the cuckoo’s nest?
Didn’t I tell you that you would feel better in an organized space?! Isn’t breathing wonderful? ;0)
Yeah Mave – Now if I could just get my school work to be this refreshing and easy! And Mathew – very funny. I know where you live.
Yes, and turns out they have a nice padded circular room here for you too!
Wow, wish I could do that… I’ve tried countless times to organize my space. It usually lasts for a few da– um, hours(?), then its back to chaos again… Oh well. I suppose I’m a “big-picture thinker” aswell.
Oh I hear ya Brandon (*eyeing the billfold, the assignment, and the magazine already piled on the edge of the desk*). I am convinced it’s a never-ending battle for people like us. Maybe Thriller should hire himself out!!
And when you find your chalkboard eraser in the chaos, fling at the guy above you. Brother needs a smack-down. :P~