The Importance of Stuff, or The Day I Organized My Desk…

When you’ve moved as often as I have and when you’ve left so many possessions scattered across the country like little life seeds, so hopeless of ever again sprouting, you place greater value on the things that remain.

Wednesday, I made it my task to tidy up the small corners of our dining room that have inevitably become my spaces. It was no less than a nine hour undertaking. Admittedly, I work deliberately, but when it comes to my stuff, that task takes on a life of its own as I must carefully inspect, touch, open, shuffle, read, and remember.

I only took one before picture because, after I took a really good look at it, I was really embarrassed.

I am a Cancer-on-the-cusp-of-Gemini. I am sentimental. Stuff is important to me. Now, I am not materialistic, because this is a beast of an entirely different color. But the possessions that I keep actually mean something to me. This is Crabbie. Crabbie came out of one of my son’s Happy Meals, oh, about ten years ago. He gave it to me knowing nothing of astrology but simply because tie-dye is one of my very favorite things.

I have had this StoryPeople® computer printout for three years. It has been taped up in every office I’ve ever occupied in that time. If it were possible, I would wallpaper my home office (when and if I ever get finished with it) with computer printouts of all of my favorite StoryPeople® musings. And if I actually had, you know, money, I would buy the framed art and decorate each wall with all the colorful whimsy that is StoryPeople® art. But this particular musing, it means something to me. It is substantive.

And so it goes and goes…

I couldn’t possibly throw away this birthday card. Mom sent this to me, and it has wonderful possibilities for that collage I plan to begin sometime in the very near (read: distant) future. I couldn’t possibly throw this card away because mom sent it to me, and she took the time to write such a sweet and uplifting message. I couldn’t possibly throw this away because it might hurt her feelings. I CANNOT throw this card away because the very act of doing so smacks of betrayal (and my heart will surely crumble).

The same scenario played out in my head when I considered putting away the snow couple, also a gift from Mom, even though it is September and 98 degrees with 90 percent humidity and sweat was certainly trailing down between my boobs and pooling in my bellybutton at this point. Besides, Christmas is just around the corner, right? And the jiggling spring-legs amuse me.

The fact that my mother lives in San Francisco and that I am firmly planted in Virginia and very, very poor and can’t afford a plane ticket to go see her even though I haven’t seen her in three years also makes throwing said card in the trash or putting the snow couple to sleep in a drawer just seem like ridiculous and unnecessary guilt-inducing decisions.

Therefore, my tendency to accumulate stuff may very well border on the side of Hoarding. And while I am a very effective organizer in my professional life, I am much less so in my personal life. It’s almost as if my stuff is like the security blanket that I slept with until I was 21 years old and about to have a baby. It’s like my nest. Each piece of paper, knick knack, and poetry book, each curious item is like a thin pine needle tucked carefully into place.

To you, it looks disheveled. To me, it is comfortable home-heaven, a place where I rest my feathers just here, just so.

This toucan pen? It’s been to college and grad school with me. It was there when I was going through my divorce. That toucan pen is my friend.

That thing that looks like a tooth? It holds the molar that my son had to have extracted when he first got braces. And, yes, I do still have his umbilical cord. Don’t judge.

(In my own defense, I cannot tell you how many times I have said to myself. Self, if you only had [insert item here], you would have your answer, clarify this memory, solve said mystery.)

Unfortunately, I also share this space with this sad sack, Baxter the Very Bad Rescue Greyhound.  And he was a bit unnerved as I labored and shuffled his space all day long and into the night. Because, as you can clearly see, this is what was in his divine life plan—to lazy around all day, shuffling his beds into just the right position. He is a nester, too, and whoever thought Baxter was born to race was even more clearly a dumbass.

So getting organized meant that I also had to tackle the file cabinet, which was in its own State of Emergency. But where else was I going to put everything that I needed to keep? Posting a before photo of the file cabinet, however, would have produced a mad case of the itchy hives all over my body.

But this is what it looked like when I was finished.

You notice I only share with you three drawers. This is because one of the drawers belongs to MSG, and I am NOT messin’ with that shit. Not unless he is right there to guide me.

And he brings me random bouquets of flowers for such love and understanding.

For a day’s worth of work, nine hours to be exact, this is what I ended up with.

This.

And a grand sense of accomplishment.