4/17/2011 - living up to our fullest potential. . .

I am not the most organized person there ever could be.  I am, frankly, a slob.  I have always been this way, and I exacerbate the problem by not really even recognizing just how messy I am.  For example, Sam complains that I leave cups everywhere after I use them, or used napkins, or my toothbrush dangling on the edge of the sink, or water splashed all over the countertops.  I'm not about to deny these very astute accusations, but I barely give them a second thought until he mentions something, usually in a huff.

My slobbery goes back throughout time with examples of varying severity.  The worst: when I was in college, I could transport no more than two people, including myself, in my four-door, five-seater Toyota sedan; the back seat was so full of junk that I could see the slush pile in the rearview mirror.

Of course, the back seat was not always this way.  I'm sure the entropy began slowly, crept up from behind and attacked when my defenses were down.  It probably began with a jacket or shirt that I had brought with me somewhere but then didn't need, which I subsequently forgot about when I got home.  It ended with a backseat crammed with clothes, books, CDs, canned goods (seriously, but no can opener, so go figure), and anything else shiny enough to have grabbed my attention, but that I did not actually want enough to do anything with other than add to the growing collection.

Did I want to have a clean car?  Of course I did!  But how was I to clean it when I was fairly certain that all the stuff in there was already growing new stuff?  By the time I finally got around to it, I basically threw everything into a bag, which now sits in a box somewhere in my parents' garage.

This morning, as I got dressed, I realized that my side of the closet was slowly succumbing to the same conditions as the back seat of my car so many years ago.  No canned goods, but I piled enough unfolded clothes onto the shelves that it looked like the bargain bin at the Salvation Army.

And of course, my side of the closet was not always this way either.  When Sam and I first moved in, we spent a whole day reconfiguring the expansive and modular closet-shelving system that came with the loft.  By the time we finished, we created an arrangement I'm sure Martha Stewart would approve.  My shirts were neatly folded in stacks, organized by type (tee, collared, long-sleeved, etc.), and my jeans were tucked away in drawers.  I could hardly believe I was responsible for this level of order.

When I looked at it this morning, and I mean really looked at it (because it had been this way for months), I felt so disappointed in myself and the closet.  Neither of us were living up to our fullest potential.  So with a cloudy day outside and a sleepy pup in, I devoted a couple of hours to turn this:

into this:

Yes, it may seem like a small job for a normal person, just some laundry and folding some clothes, but not for me: the perennial college-student/slacker type who does not have the proclivity to pick a shirt up from the ground unless he plans on wearing it right then.  This was a major accomplishment, months in the making.