CHAOS

I suffer from CHAOS. According to www.flylady.com that is "Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome." The thing is, I'm sick of living with CHAOS. I LIKE people, you see. But the chaos with which I live is a plain 'ole messy house. I have too much un-usable "stuff." My youngest daughter and I spent a whole week purging her room and now it looks wonderful and she enjoys playing in it. My oldest daughter plans to do the same with me later this week (hers is a lot further along.) But the real clencher comes because my landlord is coming by today to do a walk through because we're changing the lease a bit (long story). She's not been in the house in over 3 years. She's walked around the outside, but in those 3+ years I've accumulated 3 years worth of stuff. I think what happens is that I innocently accumulate, but then, when I don't find a place for it, it gets buried in a pile. So this morning at 5 AM I was unburying the floor in my own bedroom. I found a lot of "stuff" to throw away and it already feels better walking around in there because there is all of this space. However, despite the beautiful floors that have appeared in my house, I still have piles on every piece of furniture. It's nasty. A woman in my congregation came by to help me "uncover" my office and she called me a pack rat, but it's not that -- it's just that I get too lazy or too busy to throw things away. She has done an amazing job and I feel that I'm getting my life back -- same thing with the house. Meanwhile, I'm embarrassed about the walkthrough this afternoon. I'm embarrassed that I'm 34 and just now learning how to pick up after myself. But, I know that I have to start somewhere. I've already referenced flylady, but her whole perspective is that people suffering from CHAOS syndrome tend to be perfectionists. We can't just "pick up" a little but have to go all out, cleaning out everything. When we get in the middle of one of those tasks but fail to finish it (because we're so overwhelmed) we are left with an even bigger mess than we started with. Here's an example: I've started on my room by cleaning the floors -- however, I immediately notice all of the clothes on my bed that need to be folded. When that's done, I'll need to clean out my drawers and closet so that there is room for my clean clothes. But I'll get sidetracked by the mismatched socks and develop a system for keeping up with lost socks. Then I'll happen upon some ribbon I had lost and get started bowmaking because I'm so excited to have found the ribbon. I finally return to my room and notice that the closet is a WRECK and needs to be taken apart and the trash bags come back out. Then I see that TV on the floor that needs to go out to the garage for the sake of the future yardsale and that opens up a corner with nothing in it except for scrapbooking supplies that I need to find a home for. Are you exhausted yet? This is what I'm talking about . . . it's some combination of perfectionism, OCD (except they would finish the things) and pure denial. Because by the time everything is out of my closet, I'll be crying that there's no way I can finish it. So today, as you sit in your nice clean houses, doing only one load of laundry at a time, say a special prayer for me, that I can work through my CHAOS and begin to FLY.