Simplifying Things

Some of you might know about our exciting time the last few days, but for those of you who don't, we had the main sewer line (which is constructed of clay pipe and had all kinds of tree roots growing through it) back up, causing some flood damage to our basement.  Lovely.  I live in the basement, and my shower, which is in a bathroom adjoining my bedroom, was the worst spot for the backup.  As I write this, there are three or four trucks out in the front of the house, with workers, new pipes and who knows what else all centered around a couple of giant holes - one is in the street, and the other is in the yard next to our porch.  Basically they're working on replacing all the clay pipe with a new, seamless and apparently impervious pipe, which they have to push through the ground under our front yard, hence the hole in the street.  For the last three days, we've had a whole slew of industrial fans and de-humidifiers running 24 hours a day in the basement to dry stuff out before they start to repair damage.  Needless to say, Jack and I have been displaced temporarily, and it has been somewhat disconcerting to both of us.

I don't generally consider myself to be particularly rigid or unadaptable, but when it comes to the basics, my room, my bed, my bathroom, my things, I get really stressed out when I am without - the only exception is on vacation, and even that is somewhat stressful.  For some reason, I just really depend on those constants.  Rachel was generous enough to move out and go stay with Grandma Peckham for the duration so that I could sleep in a bed and not have to leave Jack behind, so I'm sleeping in her bed.  I mentioned that Jack was struggling a bit too - every night when I tell him it's time for bed he starts down the stairs and I have to call him back up and into Rachel's and Celeste's room.  He is so good about it all, but he isn't relaxing in the same way and still seems a little confused.  I'm starting to feel less of a wreck over the whole thing, but I'm telling you, I really can't wait until my room is all clean, re-painted and re-carpeted, and that brings me to the real reason for my post.

I hate clutter, and yet I have some mild hoarding tendencies.  I tend to want to save things in the event that I might need them, but I love organization and neatness enough to fight that tendency every so often.  I don't save things like little scraps of paper or string, but things like notebooks and mail and stuff that I've bought because I "needed" it, like my two laptop trays, my extra mouse and my plug-in 10-key pad for the laptop that I don't use anymore.  Periodically I'll go through everything and throw stuff away, file stuff, re-organize stuff and I always feel a million times better.  One major reason why this displacement this week has been so hard is that I had been wanting to do a good dejunking before it happened, but I didn't have the time and energy before it was too late - so for the last few days I've been fretting as workers and claims adjusters and everyone else has been tramping through my room looking at my clutter.  Furniture is all pushed away from the damage and it's really just a mess.  I INTEND TO SPEND TIME THIS WEEKEND SIMPLIFYING MY SURROUNDINGS.  It has to be in caps so I don't forget it or blow it off.  If I could add a blinking neon sign, I would.  I don't want all the stuff that I have, I mostly just feel like if I were to get rid of a lot of it I would just end up a few months down the road buying replacements - believe me, I've followed this path many times.  Regardless, my decision has been made with conviction, and I intend to increase my efforts to keep things simple going forward.  In fact, as is the standard for me, I may carry it a bit too far and start putting possessions that are valuable up for sale, like my new computer and desk that I got when I thought I was going to run a business......anyway, wish me luck!