Help! Inexplicable Desire to Clean!

Something is wrong. Very wrong.

I am experiencing strange symptoms. Surges of systems that are strangely unsettling. A desire to clean. To organize. Oh. Em. Gee.

A desire to dust!

Naturally, I’m stymied.

First off, the very thought is just not… moi.

Secondly, the concept of energy for such an uncharacteristic undertaking is, well, a tad frightening. Domestic Goddess is not a label anyone would slap on this little mama.

I feel… off. I must have a temperature. Surely, I am ill.

Is anyone else suffering from these symptoms? Is there an emergency toll-free hotline? Have I missed a CDC press release or a briefing on CNN?

The Storage Challenge

Once upon a time, I lived in a modest family home with a reasonable amount of clutter. Note the use of the term “reasonable.” Children and dog could be seen behind the laundry piles, some of which even finished by (briefly) disappearing, as folded laundry was put away, on occasion.

Bills were stacked in neat (okay, neater) piles. Eventually, they were filed. Books filled actual bookshelves. Storage was not an issue. There were cabinets for dishes, containers for magazines, closets and drawers sufficient to hold shoes and clothing and kid paraphernalia of unnameable sorts. There was a small but efficient home office used exclusively as an office. Attic and basement storage space facilitated boxing up of items to keep for the future, rather than in rooms where we eat or sleep.

This has not been the case for these past years, inhabiting a cottage-like home seemingly filled to splitting. Each time I’ve experienced a wave of organization and made headway, some life event has hit – accident, illness, the arrival of precious family objects following my mother’s passing. And I have sunk deeper into the mire of emotionally charged “stuff.”

Tall kids as a storage solution?

Thankfully, my sons have grown tall enough that they can be seen over the sizable stacks of books, and the exotic art installations that less imaginative visitors might disparagingly refer to as “post-dryer heaps.”

Theoretically, tall kids could be used to place “stuff” in tall places. But what if any such spaces are already jammed?

And as for this…  this desire… this strange urge that has been building for days and sleep-deprived nights… Has my immune system been compromised as I worried over my teenager burning the midnight oil on our living room couch?

What of this mania to attack that area, with its recent accumulation of textbooks and study sheets, scattered Nikes and flip flops, dirty socks and empty coke cans?

It’s Saturday morning, and though the teen has yet to stir, I begin to imagine requesting the removal of aforementioned items, knowing he will comply without a word. But I tremble at the realization that I conceive of more – whittling away at the papers on the kitchen table, the boy-laundry that has taken over the cozy den, the spillage of magazines and files on my bedroom floor.

Might a tranquil and clutter-free space ever be possible? Dare I dream?

Cleaning Contagion or Pernicious Peer Pressure?

Is it because I have apparently (unwittingly?) instigated a series of closet reorganizations on the part of friends in the blogosphere? Is this guilt speaking, because I’ve yet to go through my own closet, which actually has the capacity to hold clothing on hangers if I weed through the excess? With drawers to empty and neaten, and shelves reachable with a step stool, or tall kid?

I admit that my closet would serve as an excellent starting point to reorient many other nooks and crannies of my small home, albeit a considerable job. Is this simply Spring Cleaning Fever arriving late? Is it an odd illness to run its course and be dismissed?

• Might I beat these symptoms into submission with a Bloody Mary at mid-morning?
• Or at the very least, ease their pain? (Damn, no vodka. No tomato juice.)
• Can anyone offer a viable explanation? A cure? (I hardly feel myself. Might there be permanent damage?)
• If there is no cure, will it pass? Have you reasonable suggestions, vodka to bring by, or brawny men to assist?

© D A Wolf