Messy Girl

Dear Messy Girl,

You've spent the last two weeks trying to get organized, trying to make your home perfect.  In your post-break up panic you have frantically categorized every  drawer, every file is up to date and neatly labeled, the walls in three of the rooms in your home have been freshly painted, heavy drapery removed.  You cleaned the grout in the kitchen with bleach and a toothbrush, you threw away two huge garbage cans of old papers and magazines, you color coordinated your walk in closet.  The problem with doing all of that is that it doesn't change anything.  It makes you feel temporarily more in control, more "together" but really you are sad and lost, still wondering how someone who told you he loved you every day could just walk out.  There is no controlling that.

You had so much confidence, you believed you were loved, pretty, valued, that he was proud of you.  Even when the laundry piled up during the weeks you had craziness at work, and sometimes you lacked the energy after a hard day to go grocery shopping and ate cheese and crackers instead, you believed, you knew, he loved you.  The real you, the girl who had spent the last eleven years as a single parent struggling to put her kids through college, putting all of her energy into a thankless job so that she could take care of her family.  You believed, you knew, he enjoyed spending time with you, traveling with you.  You believed, you knew, that somewhere in his heart he wanted to be with you. 

Then it was over.  Suddenly, completely, and irrevocably over.  Of the spiteful things he had hurled at you over the past year the ones that stuck out the most had to do with being disorganized and messy.  Was this why he left?  Because in your frantic 60 hour work week you didn't make tidiness your number one priority?  Sure, your house was clean, but it was lived in and messy too; books, magazines, dog toys.  The stuff real life is made of.

Well, life is messy.  Emotions are messy, relationships are messy, construction work is messy.  Nothing is or should ever be so tightly controlled, so obsessively organized that it takes precedence over living a full, authentic and yes, messy life.  You accept your mess gladly, it comes from being more worried about friends and kids than doing laundry.  It comes from being flexible, busy and happy with hobbies and work.  It stems from joy, from relationships, from animals.  So you can stop organizing now, and relax.  Live your messy, wonderful, complicated, exuberant life...without him.