I am a very organized person. I am Type-A and I like things to be done a certain way. I’m not a “neat freak” by any stretch of the imagination (although sometimes I wish that I were) but I like everything to have a place and I like everything to always be in that place so that I know where it is when I go looking for it. An initial glimpse at my house might not suggest this seeing as, at any given moment, our home appears as though it has been struck by a very localized but very destructive tornado. To illustrate this point, I’ll tell you that I’m currently sitting at my dining room table (which does double duty has my office desk) and the entire surface of the table is covered with the following items:
- two cell phones
- birthday party invitation for the 5-year-old
- salt & pepper shakers
- two laptops
- an old wipe container full of random crayons
- 68 different business cards
- a “monster bowling” set
- a box of work-related booklets
- wrapping paper scraps
- the 5-year-old’s bathrobe
- Pottery Barn Teen AND Pottery Barn Kids catalogs
- a single black glove
- one Easter-themed Pez dispenser (empty)
- my husband’s work briefcase
- a sketch pad
- a library book
- several notebooks containing lists of things I’m supposed to accomplish
- no less than 40 pens
- the 1st grade supply list
- Nevada Lawyer Magazine
- A copy of North American Elk Ecology and Management
- 4 million random pieces of pape
None of it is organized or even stacked. It’s just spread around the table like someone walked by with their arm out and ran it across the tabletop.
Despite this example, I really do like to have things organized. And, despite the appearance of the table, I know pretty much what is where. And later, when someone starts to freak out because they can’t find the crayons, I’ll know right where they are. Because I think it’s part of my job as a mother to memorize where all the random things are in this house (usually the answer is “on the floor”). I find myself making mental notes of things I see laying around because I know the time will come that some person will be looking for that item and I will need to know it’s location. Even if that location is “on the floor, under the table in the front room”.
Wouldn’t it just be easier if everything had a place and everything was put in that place?
Apparently not because no matter how many times I ask, things don’t seem to get to where they’re supposed to be.
As an example, I give you the two-year-old’s shoes.
All shoes, in fact, are supposed to go in the mudroom. When we enter the house, we typically come in through the garage and the first room we enter is the mudroom. Here, it is my lifelong dream, for people to remove their shoes and put them into the shoe buckets that I have lovingly provided. This way, when it’s time for us to leave the house, a person would not have to lose their ever-loving mind and wind up in a ball of tears on the floor because they cannot find their shoes. Because the shoes will always be in the same place — in the shoe bucket, in the mudroom. See how easy that is?
But this does not happen. If you ask my children, they will tell that they DID put their shoes in the mudroom so they don’t know why they’re not there anymore. To the best of my knowledge, shoes do not get up on their own accord to relocate to the recesses underneath the couch. If you were to put your shoes in the mudroom, they would stay there until acted upon by another human force. It’s simple physics, really.
Anyway, the two-year-old’s shoes.
She was desperately in love with her older sister’s light up shoes and she tried to wear them everywhere, all the time despite the fact that they are about 6 sizes too big for her. So, being the most awesome mother that I am, I bought her her own pair of light up shoes. She was so happy! I no longer had to fight with her about wearing shoes that are too big! It was a magical time.
AND THEN SHE LOST THEM.
They must be somewhere in this house but where is anybody’s guess. I keep looking for them in the shoe buckets in the mudroom like they’re just going to turn up in the spot they’re supposed to be in. But because they’re not in the shoe buckets in the mudroom, they could be literally anywhere else on the planet. I don’t even know where to begin looking for them. And the two-year-old doesn’t have any idea where they are. Because why would she? She’s two.
If only there were a place in this house designated for shoes. That would be so helpful.
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