Two nights ago, I sat in my cute little office/parlor, working on my homework assignment for class (this week it’s Monteverdi…trust me, you don’t want to know). Well, I lost my big pencil eraser. Couldn’t find it anywhere, although I had just used it. How’m I gonna write music without an eraser?
Well that just made me mad. I stormed outside to the porch swing, where the Thriller was having a cigarette, enjoying the cool of the evening. I shattered his reverie by ranting to him that my office is in such disarray, I can’t find anything — even that which I had used only minutes ago.
“Why can’t I be like you,” I whined. “There’s so much crap in my office, and your office is so neat. You know where everything is. I can’t even find an eraser I had two minutes ago.”
In his wisdom, he replied reassuringly, “Well, I think in minute details. You are a big-picture thinker. And a lot more stuff can get squeezed into a big picture.”
Ahhh……
He then offered to help me tear down my office and put it back together again. I took him up on it. Trouble was, I couldn’t decide. I couldn’t decide what to keep, what to throw out (“Oh, I don’t know…I might need that 8 x 10 piece of cardboard someday…”). It was infuriating. My ambivalence, my indecision. I was traumatized.
Seeing my spinning wheels, Thriller suggested I separate things into three boxes: things I use every day, things I use somewhat regularly, and things I hardly ever use. The “hardly ever use” stuff was thrown away, recycled, put in the Goodwill box, or stacked in the eBay pile. (He did the throwing away; it was too painful for me to even watch, even though I pretended to be completely suave and cool about it.)
But you know…after the initial box went to the curb, I started to feel better. I mean a lot better. I was actually not feeling like I’d thrown out important stuff that I was going to need tomorrow because isn’t that just the way things go around this place. Yay!
I don’t know how it happened, but I felt renewed — free. Like someone or something came into my house and took all the baddies away, and isn’t it just a brazzle dazzle day ?
And now I know where everything is.
Now you just have a dandy Finkday.
Didn’t we just discuss flying over the cuckoo’s nest?
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Didn’t I tell you that you would feel better in an organized space?! Isn’t breathing wonderful? ;0)
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Yeah Mave – Now if I could just get my school work to be this refreshing and easy! And Mathew – very funny. I know where you live.
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Yes, and turns out they have a nice padded circular room here for you too!
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Wow, wish I could do that… I’ve tried countless times to organize my space. It usually lasts for a few da– um, hours(?), then its back to chaos again… Oh well. I suppose I’m a “big-picture thinker” aswell.
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Oh I hear ya Brandon (*eyeing the billfold, the assignment, and the magazine already piled on the edge of the desk*). I am convinced it’s a never-ending battle for people like us. Maybe Thriller should hire himself out!!
And when you find your chalkboard eraser in the chaos, fling at the guy above you. Brother needs him some smack-down.
~
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