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I am nearly thirty years old.
That’s WEIRD.
30 has never been a scary age for me. 20 freaked me out, because I always thought of myself as child-like and 20 was a decidedly ADULT age. But once I had hit that ominous level of adulthood, 30 just seemed like a minor transition.
It helps that I feel like my life is somewhat on track. At this age I hoped to be married with a child, and I am. I hoped to be a dog trainer, and I have not only trained service dogs, but have just started my OWN DOG TRAINING BUSINESS.
But I’m still leaving my 20s, and there are some things I haven’t done.
Some people make a “30 things to do before 30” list. I didn’t do that, mostly because I:
a) couldn’t think of 30 things
b) never got around to it
c) knew that I wouldn’t be able to achieve them, anyway
I would have included items such as “become a published author” and “find a hair style that doesn’t make me look fat or like I have no ears” and it’s hard to achieve the near-impossible within a limited time frame.
So then I thought I’d do a “30 posts til 30” thing, where I reflect on various aspects of my twenties, getting older, etc… but that would have had to start on Dec 30th.
But I DID make posts on those days, so maybe it still counts?
Anyway, today is a combination of New Year’s Resolution/Nearly 30 post.
I decided what I wanted for my 30th birthday.
A CLEAN HOUSE.
And I don’t mean just a newly-scrubbed house. We’ve done that before. It just gets dirty again.
Our big problem is that we have a small house and a lot of STUFF. We also have very few ways of organizing that stuff. Hence our entire house has basically turned into a disorganized heap, with tunnels cut through it for us to be able to pass from one mess to another.
I may have some slight hoarding tendencies.
I also have difficulty with making somewhere LOOK clean. I understand the concept of CLEANING. I rub it until the dirt comes off. I can CLEAN.
But I can’t seem to make things LOOK clean.
Meanwhile, there are some people who walk into a room, rearrange a few things, and presto! The place looks immaculate. I watch and gape and am like “SHOW ME YOUR SECRETS.”
Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be a teachable skill. When I ask people how they did their magic they just say things like “I moved some stuff”. I posted the question on message boards and got useless answers like “make it part of your routine to do certain things daily”.
So the only answer I can think of is to just get rid of the stuff that’s making my place messy.
Really, what I need are shelves and storage containers (we have limited floor space but a lot of unused wall space and a big storage area under the stairs), but we’re tapped out for money right now. My work has now cut me down to 17 hours a week, which doesn’t even really cover daycare. I’m the ONLY one with cut hours, too.
That’s so good for my self esteem.
ANYHOO,
I need to declutter and organize.
What better time to purge my life of old things but the time before my transition to age 30? Like a butterfly crawling from a cocoon I will shed the detritus of my 20s and emerge as a totally new and tidy self.
Or something.
The only thing is that this is a completely impossible and overwhelming task to contemplate, so I will have to enlist some help from friends.
I hope there’s somewhere out there who wants to go through my old clothes with me. Preferably one of those magic poof-it’s-clean folk.
If any of you have organization tips, now would be a great time to share them.
