The Merits of a Clean Room

Ever since I was old enough to remember I have not had a clean room.  I would like to say it has been a genuine struggle to change my disorganized, messy nature, but it's been more of a disinterested thumb wrestle on my part.  Both of my parents are focused, exactly, and organized people, making living with what I had long considered my natural state of being difficult for them.

Lately, I have begun to suspect that this urge to pile, to lose, and to absentmindedly step over large mountains of toys/clothes/books is more a vice than an inherent quality in my nature, neutral beyond the annoyance of all who surround me.  I have tried especially in the last year to overcome this with some degree of success, leading me to believe that this is an obstacle stuck in my path for me to try and scale, to conquer.  Everyone has one -- math, basketball, an overinflated ego -- but it's not so fun when it's YOU diligently removing book after book from your floor, not even remembering how they got there.

Right now, all I have to do is look to my left and see five piles of books, binder, and papers sitting unobstrusively on my desk.  And to think, it was only yesterday that I cleaned my computer desk.  And yet it is with complete confidence that I can say that if I try, I can be super organized.  A case in point is my precalculus notebook, where I scratch down every problem, every formula each day in class.  The notes are labelled by color-coded sticky notes by chapter, one for each day, so that I can find whatever I need come final review time.  In addition, each worksheet is folded and stuffed into the appropriate area.

I believe that all our problems, all our little vices, are set in our way to make us better people.  The glutton who learns self-control, the liar who learns the power of honesty, the fool who learns to think -- all these people can be improved by the not-so-simple mind over matter.  I don't believe that you have to do it alone.  How can we aspire to be something more than what we are without the help of faith?  All, in the end, would prove meaningless. 

I don't say these things as a person who has lived a long and fruitful life after overcoming something horrible like an addiction or an abusive environment.  I say these things as human to human, one girl to all the people in the world, or all the people who read my work.  When I was a young child, up until about when I was eleven or twelve, I had a real problem with lying.  Every little domestic issue would result in a lie. 

Dad: "Did you brush your teeth?"
Me: "Yes."
Dad: "Then why is your toothbrush dry?"   

Mom: "Did you eat some Halloween candy?"
 Me: "No."
Mom: "Then why are there candy wrappers under your pillow?"

And so on and so forth.  I finally began to care that I was doing something wrong, that I was doing something against the rest of my character, and I stopped.  Not so easily as that, but still.  Instead of just accepting that this was a part of who I was, I tried to become someone else.  As humans, we are called to become something more than who we are, to try and strive above and beyond our nature.  It is right, it is good, and it is true.

Now I have to go clean my room.