A World of Clutter

If it had been left up to me, I would still be sharing a bedroom with my older sister. I was 9 or 10 before she moved out of the one we shared. To be fair, she was neater than me and liked to study quietly. I threw things wherever, played, sang and was never alone. I could see how that would get overwhelming.

At first, my parents said no, my father wanted to claim the spare for an office. But she wore them down like a steady leak in a thousand-year-old fountain.

That first night she was gone, I huddled into my blankets, trying to stay calm inside the fear, convincing myself that cockroaches preferred bathrooms over twin beds. I knew it was irrational to think my sister’s presence had any control over them, but logic never comforted me.

In the daylight, I realized that I could claim the space as my own. My sister couldn’t, “Ewwww” my Outsiders posters, Matt Dillon staring at me with his bad boy eyes, me and Pony Boy both about to lose the battle to stay golden. They were the cutest! And maybe she would stop trying to convince me that Jon was cuter than Ponch. Ridiculous. (Youngsters, just keep going. You’ll understand again soon.)

I took this marking of my territory very seriously, determined to create a space for some school work and sentimental scraps. I ached for a palace to feel safe and grown up in. Instead, I threw everything into the middle of the floor. Barely identifiable as a desk, I discarded notebooks and beloved Harlequin romances among the old, vaguely hidden chocolate wrappers. It wasn’t like anyone was visiting.

We moved to the tenth floor of a high rise when I was 11. I took my posters, mixed piles of clothing, books, pens, word puzzles and Tiger Beat magazines with me. I flipped through their pages like a hopeful lullaby, not knowing that so many of my childhood favorites were only perfect inside glossy centerfolds, which don’t stand up well in the rain.

My mother opened the door carefully, already angry. “Clean your room,” she intoned in her nasal twanged best, picking through clothing, trying desperately not to twist an ankle. “You really invite your friends here? How do you live like this?”

It wasn’t as chaotic as it looked. I could echo locate any tiny thing, from my favorite leg warmers to my bright green headband. Other, well meaning people decided it was an expression of my lack of self esteem. Could be, but I didn’t believe in their absolute relation to each other. Plenty of self hating people with stricter parents kept a spotless room. I was just too lazy to toss my clothes into the hamper.

Adulthood was no help either. My poor college roommate was forced to reside amid my chaos, and she was nice enough to live out the year on her neater side of the room. Once I got my own space in a suite of other people, there was little improvement. It was cluttered until I couldn’t take it. Or, I moved.

There was a theory floating around my family that once I was paying my own bills, I would want to take better care of my things. Instead, I just picked my way through the room, gingerly avoiding my cassettes inside and out of their cases. There is not enough room on this page to describe the petrie dish of my 1989 white Chevy Nova, or the cars that came afterwards.

Marriage was no help. I was crazy about my husband before I met him in person. We connected at the dawn of AOL instant messages and chatrooms. It seemed fated that we’d find each other. 

Even before I told him about my not so checkered past, I warned him. “I’m really messy.”

“I don’t mind,” he said. “It can’t be that bad.” We were young. He was naive.

It wasn’t until he came into my bedroom in an apartment I was sharing with two other adults and five cats, that I believed him and he believed me. He neither ran screaming nor did the dishes, and that was just fine.

We rented an apartment in Woodland Hills in the San Fernando Valley. It was a two bedroom. We used the extra one to shove all our garbage into when we had guests. Or needed to find the cat. It worked well. 

When we bought a house and had kids, I tried. I really did. Partly, it was a matter of not understanding cleaning physics. My counters were never shiny and it seemed I suffered from an awful case of crumb blindness where what was obvious to everyone else, escaped my attention.

My mother-in-law kept assuring me that she was once as messy as we were, but that something had shifted. She swiped at the counter and washed dishes she’d already cleaned. I found it hard to believe and a bit passive aggressive. If it was that easy I would have done it years before. The dishes were always done and the clothes were washed, but nothing else was.

I hired a cleaning lady out of desperation. Which, ironically, forced me to clean frantically, the night before she came. The kids learned to hate the process but they can straighten things out in a pinch. Sort of.

I was ashamed but felt helpless. It was before YouTube and I was a grown mother with two children whose folded shirts were as poorly done as the balled up fitted sheets shoved into the back of the closets of my mini McMansion. Thank goodness for wrinkle free.

As suddenly as they’d appeared to leave their toys all over my living room, my boys were studying far away. We unraveled the mess we’d accumulated for 20 years and went north, giving away most of what we had before. It felt like a cleansing.

At my new house, I find myself both not accumulating so much, and maintaining what I have. We invite people over a lot and we only just noticed that it takes ten minutes for showtime, laughing at our younger selves that needed two days lead in. To be sure, some days are messier than others, but nothing like what they used to be. 

For my mother, who didn’t live long enough to see it, and the long line of people who have tried to and helped me to be a better housekeeper, I am eternally grateful.

As it turns out, my mother-in-law was right. One day, it just clicked.

Now I go around like my mother, barking orders I used to ignore. 

“A place for everything and everything in its place! If you do it right the first time, you won’t have to do it again! For fuck’s sake, pay attention!”

I smile, wiping at previously unseen spots on the counter after my dishwasher is loaded. I’d been right all along. It didn’t change my life that much, but if you stick around long enough, anyone can clean their room.