Back In The Saddle

"Do you ever feel that you are drowning?
Do you ever feel like you are going under fast?
Do you ever feel that you are wasted
and you need a little confidence to pull you through?

Do you ever feel like you are losing?
Does it ever feel like you are fighting against the tide?
Do you ever feel like you are helpless
and you need to find somebody who can show you the way?"
- Rick Astley, "Body And Soul"

For the last four to six weeks, I've been awfully naughty and negligent and haven't really done much at all when it comes to tidying up. I guess that having spent four solid months endeavouring to get tidy, I was due for a break anyway.

For the last week or so, I found myself in something of a funk. I noticed that despite the huge and heroic strides which I had made, fundamentally I was still having to climb over things to walk from one side of my bedroom to the other.. my hallway still has as many storage boxes in them as before, and... well, what kind of difference had I made? Was I fooling myself? Had I really achieved anything? Things were really just not noticeably better than before.

Not much happened on Saturday, although I discovered a suitably motivating audiobook called "It's All Too Much". Big value at six hours plus, and anything that long must be really motivational.

I spent part of Sunday diving underneath my bedroom table. Plenty of dust down there, and I'm sure I saw a spider scurrying away into a box of paper that I haven't yet examined. There was something on the Discovery Channel about paper spiders, apparently they're super-dangerous. Probably nothing though.

Monday rolls around and the nasty gap in my kitchen wallpaper left by the removal of the old boiler (before Christmas) is finally covered up with a nice new cupboard. I choose to place saucepans in it. It is good. And funnily enough, this is what sets it all off again. In clearing the work surfaces so that the man with hammers is able to install the cupboard with due speed and efficiency, I find myself noticing how nice it is to have some flat surfaces that don't have things on them.

Flat surfaces. I remember those. I used to have them, once.

And so I shall again. I decide that it is time to clean house again, and the kitchen seems as good a place as any. After all, there's not a whole lot of stuff in the kitchen, so it should be the easiest target for tidying. And, if I say so myself, I'm quite pleased with how it went. A quick whizz through the cupboards revealed much that was past its "best before" date (mostly packets and tins and sachets of miscellaneous things that I never quite found myself in the mood for eating) - so off to the bin it went.

Another cupboard is full of plastic bags. Useless. To the bin with them. Still more cupboards are hiding large numbers of mugs, both old and new. I do not need this many mugs. All in the bin. I've had enough now. I want the space more than I want this stuff. I'd rather have room in my cupboards where I can put things away, in turn meaning that my flat surfaces can be flat and unencumbered by other things that don't fit in the cupboards.

And on top of the cupboards - boxes, jars, light bulbs, all manner of things that I put there to get them out of the way. They could stay there, but it's the principle now. It's not even so much about the space, it's about how it LOOKS. A room with stuff sitting, dusty, on top of the cupboards, looks like chaos. I'd rather see the wallpaper that's behind them.

It doesn't take at all long before it's looking like a whole new kitchen. I love walking in and seeing.. well, space. Flushed with success, I had to walk to the local hardware shop at the bottom of my road, to buy a small tin of white gloss paint (£1.44 - I remain amazed that this lovely little shop stays in business with low prices like that) to touch up the newly-installed woodwork that was installed to cover the large holes left by the boiler. I had forgotten how difficult and messy painting is (or at least it is if you are like me and have no patience) but I manage not to mess things up too much, and the large streaks of paint that I managed to get all over the wallpaper are not particularly visible from floor level.

I wuv my kitchen. I think I get it now. It's not so much about being "tidy" - it's about having SPACE. It's about getting rid of clutter. Or "cludduh", as the American man on the audiobook says.

That was yesterday. Today I attacked the living room. There's far more to do here, but even a few hours work makes a world of difference. That pile of boxes and junk behind the sofa has to go. Plenty of it does, the rest gets moved. The plastic storage boxes piled by the door and beside the TV move to the nice new space behind the sofa. This looks a lot better. That  pile of satellite receivers on the mantelpiece is consigned to the cupboard-under-the-stairs, along with plenty more other boxes which I don't quite have time to fully tidy right now, but which I no longer want to look at. Space. Visible space is what I need here. And it's working. I adore this.

There's still more to do, but things are already looking much better.

Of course the bedroom is still the major problem - but this fresh surge of enthusiasm is reminding me of just what's possible, and how things can look all better within moments if I can just be ruthless. Sure, I've got plenty of bits and pieces that I could sell for 99p on eBay - but they're a hassle to post, and it means holding on to them until they sell. Sticking them in the bin makes that space available right away - and that's worth 99p of anyone's money.

The Wednesday morning rubbish collection was burdened with one or two rather heavy items of mine, which are now on their way to the local dump. And the bins are virtually overflowing with bags of my discarded stuff. They get emptied tomorrow - which is good, because I've got plenty more trash where that came from.

The bedroom is still the problem. But I think I'm starting to get there.