"A messy room is a messy soul."

~ Nana

It's so hard to make the big changes - careers, lifestyles, and life paths. It's hard to go from a person who goes about things just one single way to someone who goes about things a completely different way. Me, I've always liked clutter. Chaos surrounds me, whether it's piles of graded and ungraded papers or paid and unpaid bills. There are pens and rubber bands, too. A couple pairs of scissors. A paper shredder that's jammed and a stapler that no longer staples.

My version of cleaning involves me sitting in the middle of the floor, sorting and resorting, ending up with a stack of papers to throw away but somehow with no less volume in the end. I can hide stuff, though. I can make piles upon piles to put in corners; I can load my closet with egg crate cartons overflowing with old folders and binders and other things I can't categorize.

"A messy room is a messy soul" - this is what my nana says. She asks me about my apartment, if I'm keeping it clean. She must notice the hesitation before I reply, "It's ok." And she would also notice, if she visited, that my "cleaning" was actually just "stacking."

Back when I had two rooms - one at my mom's and one at my dad's - the one at my mom's was the disaster area. It was the one with sketches taped all over the walls and ten unfinished journals stacked next to my bed. It was the one that had the occasional visit from a mouse or scary spider. The one at my dad's, on the other hand, was spot free. Nothing was out of place; but then again, I didn't have all my stuff there - only the bare essentials. No furry creatures dared make an appearance in that room. While the room at my mom's would seem to be the more natural fit--chaos! clutter!--I felt equally comfortable in both rooms.

Me and my messy soul. A part of me must think it true. Otherwise, I wouldn't worry about it so much. But like I said before, it's hard to make the big changes. I can take the garbage out each week; I can keep my dirty dishes from piling up too high; I can push things into corners. Unfortunately, my rooms and my soul have never been and will never be immaculate (or, let's say, "neat").