The Big Clean

It's so amazing to me to look back and see how totally different, and yet very much the same I am now, as an adult, compared to when I was a kid. I guess I should say child so no one reminds me that kids are baby goats, but it seems somehow...pretentious?...to refer to oneself as a child. Maybe that's just stuck in my head since I've been reading Robert Jordan, but there it is, one way or another.

There are very few people, outside of my family, who have known me long enough to witness both sides of this difference/sameness. And all of those people are either my closest friends, or people who didn't actually know me, then or now. I have no idea if my friends think I've changed or not, I'll have to ask them soon. I know for a fact that my acquaintances who were considered friends at the time would think I've changed completely. Those who were too cool to know me then are mostly still too cool to talk to me now.

(Thank God.)

My recent manic organizing/minimizing is just one point that brought this change, or lack of, to my attention. Here's one example: the first half of my life was spent obsessively keeping anything and everything that had a memory attached to it. For someone like me, who pretty much attaches a memory to everything, that meant that by the time I reached high school, I had a room packed to overflowing with what was mostly junk. Thinking back specifically to my freshman year, and the first time I brought a boy over and let him into my room...I shudder to now to recall how it must have looked to him.

Just getting the open in the first place was impossible. The carpet was invisible, because there was a layer of clothes and other miscellaneous junk covering ever square inch. Every available space was loaded down with more stuff, and that included my double bed. Only half of it was left clear for me to sleep on, the half piled high with clothes, papers, books....you get the idea.

But somewhere along the way, I just decided to be organized. I discovered a long dormant desire to have a place for everything, and put everything in it's place. It's funny for me to feel the sense of satisfaction I get from being organized. I giggle when I boast to my friends about my newly organized closet, because I know how funny it must sound to hear the pride in my voice...and yet I cannot help it, because I really to feel like I've done something great.

I suppose my friends really aren't that surprised to hear me bragging about cleaning out the downstairs room in a 10-hour marathon with my husband, or being excited about the shelf organizers I picked up from Target. They think pretty much everything out of my mouth is funny for one reason or another.

I guess some things don't ever change.