Spring is in the air! So much for New Year’s Day when everyone promised to make changes to improve their lives. You know the drill: lose weight, quit smoking, and be nicer to people, blah, blah, blah. Truth is, not many resolutions last beyond the first week. Many promises we make to ourselves are hollow words, like the time we swear to go to church every Sunday if a turbulent flight lands safely, or the promise to visit Grandma more if the world could just deliver us the love of our life.
But hooray! It’s spring! And we can really make some improvements now that the mental storm (and guilt) of new years has graciously passed.
This year, there is one resolution I must keep in order to get a grip on my sanity. Clear the clutter. As I was moving for the third time in five years, I decided to clear the clutter before packing boxes so my new abode would be a place of joy and contentment! Of course, to keep it that way will be the greater challenge! The interim solution appeared easy at first: move piles into “like things” and clear some space. Then figure out what to do with the “like things” and toss in a heap in the closet. NO! No, no, no! Ugh. Although I was quite capable of doing it myself, I gave myself my first gift of Christmas—I sought out help from a professional!
I sought out web sites of professional organizers with photos of messy kitchens and children’s rooms with too many toys, many of which I’m sad to reveal, looked exactly like mine—piles and piles of stuff. Finally, I chose the two areas, which give me the biggest problems: my kitchen and my two boys’ rooms. To be honest, the garage was number one, but I didn’t have the time, energy, or money to tackle that one; maybe next year. Out of several organizers, I chose two. I also found out that many are members of a National Organization of Professional Organizers, and I would have been better off to start there.
First, I met with an organizing expert based in San Francisco who met with me at the home I was moving from. I immediately felt like I made a new friend! He explained that although the first step to clearing the clutter may be daunting, it was important to do a basic inventory of everything I had. That was entirely too much! He talked with me about what my main goals were and discussed the importance of understanding why we get ourselves back into a mess, literally.
“Everything must have a home,” he said. And unless I put those things back where they lived, they would meet other stuff, multiply, and become gremlins in my kitchen universe. No, he didn’t say that, but that’s what I imagined would happen. He literally went through everything in the kitchen with me, sleeves up, throwing away, recycling, and dodging my two-year old and ten-year old, who managed to perform knockdown, drag-outs for his entertainment. After figuring out (and admitting to) all the things I had, he helped me purge (guess I didn’t need twenty spatulas, just a couple—and I was living in Tupperware hell), and organized similar items into boxes. “It’s good that you’re doing this now,” he said, “It will make your move much easier.” I needed the confidence he had in me and was conjuring up how much it would cost if I could just have him do the whole house by himself. But then I wouldn’t learn anything, would I?
So in came the vans! The professional workers loaded, pulled, and hauled my many labeled boxes and possessions from my “old place” to my new home–I felt like I stepped into the middle of a Cinderella flick–they smiled and sang while they worked. Cool.
