Organizational Rock Bottom

Yesterday, I was on my way to the hospital to visit my baby grandson who had just had major surgery the previous day when I hit rock bottom in terms of disorganization.  Here is how I summarized the event on Facebook:

I never used to leave the house w/o spare keys in my pocket and my house clean. For the last 7 months, I’ve been unorganized. It has to stop. I’m sitting in a diner locked out of my car. A family member has a spare key, but she’s working. When I do get in the house, I’m not even sure if my spare car key is there, or in my gym bag *inside the car*. Pray for a snow/organizing day for Monday!

Although the incident was certainly an inconvenience for me, my daughter who was waiting at the hospital, the family member who needed to pick me up and take me home, and even the waitress at the diner who couldn’t clear my table, it wasn’t any of that which upset me most.  It was the realization that being disorganized had again become normal for me.

For me, there is a strong association between depression and a messy home.   In the past when a depressive episode would start, I’d stop caring about being clean and tidy.  Eventually, even if the depression might have lifted, I would come home to such a mess that it was overwhelming.  Looking around would bring on feelings of worthlessness, guilt, and hopelessness that fed right back into the depression.  Eventually, I got control over both my environment and my mood.  For a long time, my whole house looked like this:

It was minimalist, tidy, and clean.  For a good while, I had a reputation at work of keeping a perfect home.  So when things began to deteriorate for me again, when I stopped using the systems that had worked for me so well, it was easy to make myself believe that it wasn’t the way I usually was and that disorganization was only a temporary problem.  The thing is, I started to get disorganized a little bit toward the end of my training for The Overnight last year.  At minimum, it’s been seven months.  So when I didn’t have a spare key with me yesterday, when I would have been extremely embarrassed to have a family member come upstairs and see my house, and when I wasn’t even sure where to look for a spare car key, I had to admit that disorganization was now status quo for me.

That was scary as hell.

It was also the best thing that could have happened.  Well, maybe to me.  I’m pretty sure everybody else who was inconvenienced by my blunder had better things to do yesterday.  But my mistake gave me the gifts of clarity and some time with no distractions to figure out what I could do to fix the situation.  Before depression sneaks back into my home under the pile of papers on my dining room table.

I think there are people who don’t need a plan.  I am not one of them.  Years ago, I worked with a wonderful woman named Marion who was the most organized person I have ever met.  She wasn’t the smartest, fastest, or hardest working staff member in our crew, but it didn’t matter because she was the most efficient.  Marion and her systems kept me from looking stupid on any number of occasions and allowed her to be promoted to the highest position she wanted in our company.  Whenever she was complimented on her organization, which happened frequently, Marion would say, “Oh, but I’m not organized at all.  I have to do all these tricks just to keep up.  If I didn’t do them, everything would fall apart.”

It took me years to understand what Marion meant, but as I was getting organized the last time, I finally got it.  Like me, Marion was not inately organized.  I suspect at one point, her disorganization got her into some of her own bad situations.  When she finally had enough of it, she figured out some ways to keep track of the world around her.  Years later, Marion still felt like an impostor among people who are naturally organized.  Just like Marion, my organization is real, but a constructed reality.  I need to have a plan.  Sitting at the diner yesterday, this is what I came up with:

The Plan

• Suspend my workouts for three weeks and start again using the 15 week training schedule instead of the 22 week schedule
• Use the time which would have been devoted to training to get back to the organized state that was once my routine
  • Week 1:  Straighten up one room of the house/day (remove excess stuff and put everything in its place)
  • Week 2: Clean and organize one room/day (including closets, drawers, cabinets, etc.)
  • Week 3: Develop systems (daily schedule, meal plans, workout plans, revise bill paying/tracking system, etc.)

Why this will work

Last year, I would not have been able to use the 15 week training schedule.  It advances quickly, and my fitness level wouldn’t have been up to it.  This year, I haven’t gotten that out of shape from the “off season,” so I’m not worried about the schedule being too difficult for me.  There are also a couple of things that are taking up my time that may not be an issue in three weeks.  Since my fall down the stairs, I’ve been seeing a chiropractor twice a week.  Those visits should soon be down to once a week.  I’m also seeing a physical therapist weekly for plantar fasciitis, and that’s only scheduled to go for another four weeks.  Four days a week, I go straight from work (south side) to pick up my daughter from her college classes (east side) and drive her home (south side).  That commitment is likely to end in three weeks when she will start getting paratransit services.

My major goal is to get everything back in order before I start training again so that I don’t always feel like I’m playing catch up (and trying to outrun depression demons).  So far, so good.  I started with my bedroom, which is now nice and tidy for the first time in awhile.  I chose the bedroom as my starting point so that when I wake up tomorrow, the first thing I see will be positive reinforcement of my progress.  Tomorrow:  my nemesis the dining room.