Tidying Up

I'm a miserable failure; I've finally admitted defeat. I can't keep my room tidy. I've tried, I really have. Today is the last straw though, I decided about half an hour ago that enough was enough, I entered my room intending to sort it out and here I am typing this instead.

I’ve been like this, for as long as I can remember. I’ve never been able to keep a tidy bedroom. I’ve always had excuses. My usual one is lack of space, but I guess I can’t always use that same excuse. I mean it’s my room, I don’t share it with anyone, it’s not even a particularly small room, it’s a decent size.

I go through phases of having clearouts. I end up sorting through my stuff, and can usually mange to clear a couple of bin bags full of my precious things. I do find it difficult to throw things out, I’m a sentimental bloke, and I put value on things which probably don’t warrant it. My first job application, my first wage slip, concert programmes not to mention books, CD’s and video’s

Maybe it stems from my childhood. I’m one of four boys, two older brothers and one younger. I was lucky, I got my brothers toys handed down to me, and there were loads of them. I shared a room with my younger brother, and our cupboards were full of toys. So full in fact, that there was no room for anything else. So all the stuff I used day to day never got stored away. The wardrobe was full to bursting, and so were my drawers. Things ended up on the floor, and piled up on any available space. My mum was no help; she refused to tidy our rooms. I don’t blame her at all. It was an impossible task. I know from experience just how impossible it was. About once a month I would be forced to do it. I can clearly remember being ordered to have a tidy up, being really upset and not allowed to come out of my room until it was done. I would end up just finding places to hide stuff, under the bed, on top of the wardrobe and trying to organise my junk into neat piles.

Things are better now, but only just. For some reason, I find it impossible to remove clothes and put them away. They either go on the floor, or into the wash basket. This is one thing that really gets me. I wash my clothes too much. It seems I would rather throw my jeans into the washing basket, and have all the bother of washing and drying them, rather than taken a moment to fold them neatly away in a drawer.

I read a newspaper in bed it goes on the floor. Why don’t I just put it in the bin? Madness!

The rest of my house is spotless; I have nothing lying around in any other room. I guess this is because I have lodgers, and we share the main living rooms. This, I guess, could be part of the problem. Having the lodger’s mean that my entire life is pretty much in one room. If I didn’t have lodgers, I could have all my Videos and DVDs on shelves in the living room.

I know deep down that it wouldn’t really make a huge difference. if I had more space, I would just have more stuff, it’s as simple as that.

The sad thing is, it does get me down having a messy room. It makes me feel sluggish. I know this because I bought a book called, ‘Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui’. Well I kind of knew it anyway, but the book just confirmed it for me. On the rare occasions that I do have a massive tidy up, I do feel better and I make sincere promises to myself that it will remain that way. So far, I’ve broken every single promise.

I think I will have another attempt at sorting it out once and for all. Then again, maybe I won’t.