The Filth

I'm not the most motivated person. I've been this way most my life and because of it I've been called lazy, which isn't exactly wrong. So I'm kinda lazy. You can imagine this mostly applies to cleaning, school, anything I don't particularly enjoy.

Like when I'm drinking water in my room. Instead of getting up and throwing the water bottle away in the kitchen (I don't have a trash can in my room) I simply throw it on the floor and I've accepted this way of living. I've acceptable that pile of water bottles and crumpled pieces of paper five feet away from my bed. Everything builds up. The dirty clothes, the trash, the shoes that I always lose because I just throw them to the side when I get home. I'm a little filthy and I usually have no motivation to fix that. Usually.

There eventually comes a time when the water bottles become too much. The dirty clothes becoming a carpet on the floor is a little suffocating and I have nothing to wear. The random junk I have no need for and old notes I took from church are an eyesore, because now I can actually pinpoint what each pile of garbage is, but then there are the pads and tampons literally everywhere. How they wind up in every corner and crevice of the room, I have no idea.

I look at it and think, “This is fine.” but deep down, I know it's driving me a little mad. Then comes the point where I just have to clean, but it's not like I huff and get to work. It happens progressively, as if my mind is trying with all it's might to get me to do something about the mess and it can finally nudge me forward. It comes with the slow realization that the reason I migrated towards my bed to write is less about comfort and more to do with the fact that my desk is too messy to function. It's less my place to write and more my cat's place to puke when she eats too much. It happens when I begin to realize that the moment I get out of bed, my feet are coated in dirt and I have to constantly wipe them on random pieces of clothing on the floor throughout the day. I get that small nudge when I start to trip over clothes and the mess that is my room starts to come into the clean path from my bed to the door. I get a little bit of motivation when the filth is too much for even me.

Here's where my brain likes to trick me into to cleaning my room. I start with one thing. I think about how great it was when I still used to my desk to write and I think, “I should probably clean it up, it won't take too long.” Then I clean around my chair and under the desk, I pick up the clothes, but I have no place to put them. They're dirty, I can't put them in the basket with my clean clothes.

Side note, I have three baskets for this purpose, but the two other ones are already filled.

I need to clean them so I can put them somewhere, but my parents have gone to bed and the washing machine is right by their door. I decided to on putting them in garbage bags and washing them in the morning. I clean around the desk, but before I know it, I picked up . . . all? . . . the clothes?? Somehow I made it all the way over to the other side of the room and now my dirty clothes are together and ready to be washed??? How did this happen????

Then I suddenly have another bag I'm putting my trash into and the water bottles have been thrown away. My room is looking like a room and I can't stop there. The trash has been thrown away, the clothes off the floor, the feminine products are in unused makeup bags, and my sister is claiming things I don't want and I'm sweeping the remaining things into a pile in the middle of the room and I'm sorting things. I managed to clean off the bookshelf of my older sister's old things and my books have a place to go.

That's how it works. I start with one thing and that puts me in a cleaning mood. I got the motivation not because my parents told me to, but because I chose to do it and I had my own purpose.

I'm now in a clean room that doesn't even look like mine, but I'm reminded of one of the reasons cleaning my room after it becomes that mess bothers me so much. I swept up the floor, moved things around, and the dust and dirt and cat hair becomes unsettled. It's all flying the in air and as I'm finishing up, I'm also sneezing and dying.

By the way, if you're curious, here's a picture of everything I'm allergic to:

(I thought I had avoided food allergies, but it caught me with citric acid.)

I attempt to take allergy medicine, but it's in that moment when my allergies are the worst that I can't find it and my sneezes and sniffles are only getting worse. It's not the “Oh, a little bit of saliva is on my hand, better wipe it off.” sneeze, it's the nasty one. Anyone with allergies knows what I'm talking about.

I'm sitting here in my sparkly clean room and I'm dying. I've learned something today about messy rooms and letting it all build up.

Cleaning it up causes death. Just don't worry about it. Be filthy. It's fine.