It may come as a shock to no one in my life, but I’m absolutely terrible at cleaning up. Mess is a constant in my life. Now, most people would simply accuse me of being lazy, but as with everything else, the truth is far more complex. I don’t have enough time during the day to dedicate to cleaning up–at least, if I’m simply moving towards things that require my utmost attention right then and there. My mind is even more cluttered than my surroundings. Why should I spend three hours dusting surfaces when I need those hours to read, study, write, and process? Living like a writer is like having homework every day, with stuff due yesterday, and about fifteen things you needed to have read that you haven’t cracked open yet. If my teen is any indication, these days are the days when nothing else gets done.
Here comes the irony. I work much more efficiently when my surroundings are organized and clean. There’s another irony on top of that, too. I have to do the cleaning myself, so that my brain can remember where objects are, which I need as cues for external structure or else I’m just sitting there in the middle of an empty room wondering what the heck I’m supposed to do next.
Yesterday, I told my eldest that being a therapist to artsy types is an absolutely viable career path. God knows, we need all the help we can get.
So yeah, here I am, procrastinating with a blog post when I’m supposed to be cleaning. Ever since I’ve given up my loft office to my youngest and moved to the crawlspace, I’ve tripled my work area, which meant triple the clean up. I still encounter boxes of items from decades ago that I’m itching to throw away. Old laptops, school stuff, so much extension cords. It’s more manageable now than before, but sometimes I think I rail against capitalism solely because it’s given me all this work I don’t want to do. I just want to write, dammit.
Anyway, in case you missed it, SHATTERED MAGE is out on August 18 bla bla bla so that’s at least one less thing out of my mind…
