The change of seasons at my house has nothing at all to do with budding flowers or falling leaves. It concerns, instead, the cycle of life that revolves around summer and winter clothing. Every year I harbor secret fears about what might be found in the back of my closets. As a writer of horror fiction, the possibilities are endless. Everything is so cluttered that for all I know everything and everyone missing for the last six months might have found a temporary refuge there. The real tragedy is that even if they have, I haven’t even noticed!
All I have to do is open the closet door and I am “whelmed” as Mel Brooks used to say, at the task that lies before me. Piles and piles block my view; my heaps have heaps. Suddenly everything I own and cannot find is looking back at me with accusing, disorganized eyes. I usually tackle the floor and my shoes first. That gives me a place, however tenuous, to stand. Then I work my way up to what’s dangling, sort of hanging and should be hanging.
Do not attack first and ask questions later. (This isn’t your mother-in-law; it’s your closet). Go through everything with three alternatives in mind; give away, put away or throw away. Reorganization should include identifying what you use and what you love. Decide what is important, garment by garment, shoe by shoe, box by box, missing person by missing person.
Give everything else away. Consider yourself an anorexic and your clothes extra pounds or worse, fattening food. You must summon the inner strength to make these purging and sorting decisions. Remember that it only hurts for a little while, especially if you force yourself to clean up and put away as part of your daily routine. I can’t do it, but maybe you can.
Another way to ensure that everything gets done is to take everything out of the closet and throw it on your bed. Then step back and analyze the situation. Reduce your closet to two activity zones; need and don’t need (but would if I could find it). By throwing everything in one place you must utilize every day you will be forced to complete the job at hand before bedtime. (If you get really disgusted, there’s always the floor or a nearby motel.)
There’s no point in denying the psychological aspects of closet clutter. Avoid asking questions such as: Why do I like chaos? What does all this disorganization do for me? Does chaos offer me something my husband can’t? And last but not least, Dr. Phil’s famous question: How’s that working for you?” Think instead of what you could become if you were just a little bit more organized. Perhaps a king among kings or a queen among queens (if you could find your crown). Who knows what awaits us all in the organized after-life?
All anyone can really do, I suppose, is hope for the best. Maybe the Holy Grail isn’t really in the back of my hall closet. I can’t open it anyway. Or what about all those missing planes and ships in the Bermuda Triangle? Nah, my closets aren’t big enough. Still, who knows what clutter lurks beyond the confines of one’s hall closet? The clutter bogeyman, that’s who!
What does YOUR closet look like?
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