Too Many Words...

Ahh to be a kid again...

When I was a kid I never liked to clean my room. The idea of it was always great. Get rid of the clutter, put everything in neat little piles, and generally have the double benefit of less GI Joe limb amputations and less time jumping around on one foot swearing. Now I was also a master of efficiency as a child. I would cross my legs long past any reasonable point so that I could get two bladderfulls worth on the next trip to the washroom and save myself a future trip. When I ate I put away far more food than I needed or wanted just to make sure that I didn't faint from starvation during math period and lose valuable study time.

Likewise with my room. I got into many a shouting match with my mother that I would clean it later, because frankly it just wasn't dirty enough yet. There were certain failsafes that she just did not have the perspective to recognize. The pile to floor ratio for instance. If more than 50% of my comics were in a pile rather than acting as a second carpet then obviously there was no point in picking them up, putting them back in their protective plastic, organizing them and gauging how much a footprint devalues a price guide listing. Much better to wait until 60-100% of my comics were on the floor so I could tackle them assembly style. As far as my toys and books went, well I just had a viewpoint of abundance. What good was something if I could not enjoy it, and how could I enjoy my stuff if they did not occupy every inch of my peripherals (assuming I was looking at the floor). I swear Ghandi preached the exact same thing.

Now like any revolutionary kind of thinking your biggest barricade is the status quo. In my case that consisted of two older brothers who followed time consuming archaic methods of upkeep. I swear I would see one brother clean his room every week, with blatant disregard as to whether it was dirty or not. The other one, almost an ally with his clutterful (though woefully organized) room pulled a dirty trick when I was in my early teens. His vow of poverty may have been all well and good for his soul, but its tough to compete with a room that has only a lamp, a blanket and positive karma in it.

Now I tried to meet my mom halfway. I instituted a junk drawer to take care of loose ends and keep them out of sight until logic dictated it was time to clean up. The drawer was such an overflowing success that I soon devoted my entire desk to the cause, annexing the closet and the space under my bed (the monsters were none too happy about that) to maximize storage. Much like the native Americans using every part of the Buffalo I was giving unused resources new life. Those four pockets at the corner of my desk blotter? Great place for baseball cards and gum with a little flavor left.

But there is no pleasing some people. It seemed that nothing short of a perpetually non-hazardous living area would satisfy my mother.

So over the years I had to change my perspectives and habits to conform to the norms. Like a punk rocker in an office job (assuming he had the same history of room cleaning) I've sold out. But every now an again I see a glimmer of that wire haired kid and his head full of crazy ideas in the world around me. And I can't help but smile.

Smile and think that its about damn time I cleaned my room.