Closet!

For the longest time I have had a great deal of difficulty getting rid of things. The problem has been so sever that I have often wondered if I was a hoarder. But recently I discovered it’s not my need to keep things around me that has caused my possessions to pile in obscene amounts, no it’s my inability to sort and organize.

The fact that I would rather let things pile up than sort them truly came to a head when I moved into my current apartment. You see, in my room I have a decent sized closet, one that I was ecstatic about in the beginning, but soon became the preverbal thorn in my side.

I had no idea how to efficiently use the space, so I found myself just piling things in the closet in a haphazard manner. The closet that I was so excited about in the beginning became the bane of my existence. I found that trying to pick my outfit for the day became a weird act of masochism.  A continues stream of profanity could be heard coming from me as socks and belts fell on my head from the precarious perches they sat on.

However, the anxiety I had from living with the overstuffed closet was trumped by the anxiety I felt when I would think about actually sorting through and organizing the monstrosity.  So there I was trapped under brutal landslide of earthly objects and self-loathing associated with my inability to sort and discard them.

Enter my mother. She decided in an act that was purely altruistic to help me organize my closet. Of course I met this kindness in an adversarial way because well, I am a brat.  And sharing my mess with anyone does have the side effect of raising my blood pressure. Of course after getting through the initial discomfort we began to make lots of headway.  After a few hours of really concentrated effort my closet became something so beautiful that words cannot describe it.

I cried.

Yes as embarrassing as that is, I cried because I had an organized closet.  It is the first time I have ever had that. I mean there have been times were I have made things appear neat, only to realize upon closer inspection that there still was no rhyme or reason to object placement. But now everything has an actual home. And there is a reason for the home. Space is utilized with purpose. This may seem like such a silly thing to my hyper organized, type A friends out there, but for me this is extremely new and so liberating.

In fact having my closet so neat actually drove me to purge lots of things, and clean up the rest of my room. I have kept it this way for a week, and it’s been pretty easy since everything has a place and there is a place for everything!

It’s yet to be determined if I can keep this up long term, but right now I am hopeful that I can, and that is the best Christmas gift my mom could have given me.