Abigail M. Schilling

"Don't you feel like your life is in control now?"

I cleaned my room this weekend. We're talking cleaned. Not only did I fold the clothes and put them away, I did away with the Pile that was blocking the door, the dresser, the bed, and the closet. Yeah, that pile.

Less you think I'm exaggerating (and you won't if you either birthed me or have to live with me), this pile has been building since at least October when I got out the winter clothes. It expanded as I stopped putting things away and starting scrambling to graduate.

And my life wasn't in control. It was out.

I so badly wanted my room to be a haven. I wanted it to be a place where I could read or study when the TV was on, or a place where we could all hang out. But when the clothes cover every surface except the surface that is occupied by oh my God all the papers, it's hard to feel peaceful.

And it's hard to clean when you don't feel peaceful.

I was talking to my mom a month ago about the situation.

She had been doing her sweep-through of the house: clearing every surface, blazing the trail with soap, and leaving nothing remaining. It's a risk to leave stuff out at her house. A risk I always made.

("Where is my poster board?" "What poster board?" "The poster board that I left in the living room last night. Has the big A and the diagram of The Scarlet Letter? It's like 4 feet tall how you could possibly not know where it is?" "Abigail, why do you always leave these projects to the last minute?")

Well, apparently my brother had left his own trail of dirt and sawdust about the house. (He does the clothes thing too. "Where is my shirt?" "I washed it." "Why?!?! It wasn't dirty!" "Then why was it on the floor?" "That's where it goooes!")

"How is that I am a putterawayer and you and Jeremy are not?" she asked.

"I don't know. I wish I was."

"What happened? I even showed you how! I gave you all sorts of organizing bins. From early on!" She had. My life was bins. The toys? They went in bins. The toothbrush? Bin. The snacks? Bins. Bins. Bins.

My life still is bins. She should see my closet. Lots of shelves and labeled bins on the shelves. I am the queen of drawers, bins, shelves, and files. It's using them that is the problem.

"I try!" I said. "It's just hard to put things away in the bins and the shelves and the drawers and the files. Piles are so much faster."

And my life is too interesting to waste it cleaning my room.

So after going to Chicago and Temecula and sleeping 12 hours every night for a week, I found it in me to take my day off and do something with it.

"My life felt in control before I cleaned, it had to be that way before I could clean."