My Brain on Paper

I think I might have executive dysfunction (traumatic brain injuries in teens?), especially when it comes to planning and organizing simple tasks. I need to clean up the house. I love to clean, but I passionately hate tidying. With the kids all growing up (or grown up) and becoming self-sufficient, I'm not particularly busy these days, so I need to justify my existence by tidying up this house. Most of it is not too bad, but the master bedroom is a tip.

So yesterday, I made a "to do" list of seven simple tasks, each of which should take no more than an hour and some of which could be completed in five minutes. I'm supposed to tick off each as I complete it. That piece of paper will serve as my executive functioning until I am done. I got halfway through the first one, which was simply clearing up the surface of the ironing board and putting it away, when I became not only distracted but almost compelled to be distracted. Suddenly I felt an immense attraction to blogging, to playing Word Cookies on my phone, to reading, and to watching Australian Open tennis. Anything rather than tidying up my room. Doing so began to feel like sacrilege against much-loved and familiar chaos.

Today, I am on a strict schedule. I am hereby banning myself from blogging and from playing Word Cookies until I've ticked off all seven tasks.

I'd like to find some way to adorn the messiness, to rehabilitate it by pronouncing it in some way attractive, but I can find no positive purpose for it. I did find an article, The Unpredictable Freedom and Sweetness of Chaos, that suggests chaos is all creative and Zen-like, but I don't think not having a clear path from the door to the bed was really what the author had in mind. And chaos and messiness are not quite the same things.

Anyhow, I am from this moment banned from my blog until those seven tasks are ticked off.

😢