Let's Be For Real

Sometimes I really worry about how messy I am. I mean I’m really really messy. I try to keep it under control. I concoct detailed plans for how I am going to keep my house, car, closet, office, purse or whatever else maintained but they always inevitably fail. 

I can clean. Just call me two days before my mom comes for the weekend and you will find me cleaning. It will look pristine and I will make her think I’ve got it all together when I’m really just pretending. But who am I kidding… she knows me better than that. She saw my bedroom when I was 8, 11, 16, 22. My problem is maintaining it.

I worry because 84% of the time our house looks like a hurricane blew through and we don’t even have kids… or a dog. Our carpet would make you think otherwise. 

I’m hopeful though. My number has improved since we got married. Andrew is a big help. My college roommates would laugh at me giving myself an 84. They definitely lived with Charlotte who was a mess 98% of the time. 

But they are all neat freak anomalies. And everyone else we know seems to be too. Andrew and I have said more than once that we are not sure how we gravitated to such OCD organized roommates or how they put up with us and are somehow still our friends. I think we absorbed what little skill we have from them, thanks guys! 

We’ve started packing for New Orleans. It’s been refreshing. I’m simplifying. Purging. Every item that lands in the big black trash bag or storage pile or yard sale pile feels like a tiny triumph, moving me closer to the day when I will have a place for everything and everything will be in its place.

I’m obviously delusional. That day will never come. The reality of a perfectly organized life has eluded me long enough for me to know it’s not a reality at all but an alternate world found in the pages of magazines, in well-crafted blogs, and at my friends’ houses. 

I’m OK with that. I’ll continue to look to beautiful pictures, Pinterest boards, and all my friends for guidance, not to make me feel inadequate but to give me enough motivation to keep my spaces from spiraling into total chaos. That works for me. See...

Maybe in New Orleans things will be more orderly. Maybe my number will continue to improve. Maybe not.  In any event, I’m going to be for-real about it. Chances are, if my home is looking rockin-awesome, I will take a picture of it and show you because if I took photos every time it was a hot mess this blog would get very very repetitious.

So here’s to being an 84 and having a home that serves me… not the other way around!