What . . . Is Your Quest?

Honestly, I don't even know what my favorite color is. Does that count as Life Clutter?
I don't think it's my brain's fault.

Over the past few weeks, I've spent some minutes contemplating how to go about kicking off my personal Quest for Simplicity. I have discovered (as has anyone who has spent more than 5 minutes in the same room with me, I expect) that my tendency to clutter my environment extends well beyond my lousy housekeeping skills. Simply put (ha ha), I have a cluttered life. I have to assume, then, that any sort of guiding ideology I have adopted up to this point should be filed under something akin to "Disarray." The aforementioned act of filing is, of course, purely hypothetical as I file only things which are completely irrelevant- a cappella arrangements of Duran Duran's "Rio," for example- or otherwise unnecessary to have in a file and only then if the mood strikes me AND if I happen to be able to quickly locate my filing folders. Translation: I also have a file of letters from my first boyfriend and one that's filled with bank statements from an account that closed 12 years ago.

File under: Dibbi-dibbi-dibbi-de-WAAAAY

So does that mean I should start with working out some kind of shiny new overarching philosophy? Should I be able to put more than just my quantitative goals into words? And, if so, does that also mean that I need to be able to articulate what my approach to getting life lived has been up to this point? And then it occurs to me, as I'm writing this, that all this figuring-stuff-out business is probably just complicating the issue. I'm going for simplicity here, right? I can be pragmatic and establish what it is that I want. So here goes:

I want to know what things I have. I don't need to be a human index of the entire inventory of my worldly possessions, but I would, conversely, prefer to be not completely surprised by my own collections of things (“I have one of THOSE?”). While I am probably most guilty of this type of transgression in the clothing/shoe category, I am frequently shocked at my inability to purchase and internally catalog office supplies. I have secret stashes of markers and sticky notes all over my house- and in my purse and my glove box and my overnight bag. With a little organization, however, I would be so much less tempted to stock up on Post-Its every time I go to the store. Which works out nicely because . . .

I want to be able to organize my things effortlessly. I honestly believe this actually takes a bit of hard work on the front end. We live in a world of packaging and free T-shirts and value-packs. A single trip to Wal-Mart can easily pin a person of average fortitude down with an avalanche of Things Which S/He Did Not Intend To Invite Into His/Her Life- especially if the church people are there selling Krispy Kremes. Understand that I don't just mean impulse buys- I mean plastic bags and receipts and cardboard and plastic. I suspect that deepening my somewhat frigid relationship with my trash can could quickly improve this regularly occurring situation. It's like a hungry kitten yearning to be loved and fed, only much quieter and with a most unfortunate inability to empty itself at will.

This trashcan, on the other hand, wants for NOTHING.

I want to be able to pack and move easily. Buying a condo really did me in on this one, and joining Teach for America did and still does force me to reckon with the amount of stuff I possess. However, I remain convinced that “settling in” to a place does not require weighing it down with all of my shit. Chances are pretty slim that any abode will simply float away if it's not anchored down by closets full of crap someone forgot about years ago. Unless yours is, and then you should probably sue your inspector because- damn. I'm not necessarily talking about being a drifter or being able to fit all my worldly possessions into a shopping cart, either. I have simply realized that each item a person owns claims a little part of the soul and pushes one closer and closer to spiritual death. Packing and moving also become more complicated.

I want to care less about my stuff. I refuse to accept that I will ever be completely free of my attachments to material possessions. I have favorite articles of clothing. I am pretty protective of my laptop. I get a little obsessive about people using my non-stick cookware and, more famously, my shade tent (do NOT hang on it). Nonetheless, I admire anyone who can lose a thing of some value and shrug it off. I, on the other hand, tried to tear my mother's car apart (literally- and when she wouldn't help me remove the seat from the floor, I demanded that she drive to the dealership to have the car dismantled) over a lost earring. It fell under the seat in her car and then slid into some crevice under the floor that we have never been able to reach. I am not exaggerating when I say that I was, if only for a day or two, inconsolable. I still complain about it today- and this was probably a $7.50 loss, considering that it came from Ann Taylor and was on sale and I still have the other one somewhere. Even more embarrassingly, I'm pretty sure I convinced my mother that she was at least somewhat responsible for this apparent tragedy. Were I to put a bit more distance between my stuff and myself, I suspect the outcome would have looked more like this:

Me: Damn. I dropped my earring.

Mom: Oh, dear. Should I pull over immediately so we can engage in a frantic and ultimately futile search for it?

Me: No, we don't need to do that because it's a goddamn earring and the quality of my day(s) will not be dictated by its accessibility now or in the future! Keep driving!

Mom: I admire your carefree spirit and, thus, feel fulfilled as a parent!

"DAMN YOU, TRAVERRRRSE! I'LL GET YOOOOUUU!"

So there- I now have four philosophicalish pillars with which to gracefully and, of course, simply enter the new year. I have no more excuses lining the shelves of the "why I haven't started cleaning up my messy life" aisle. Also? I feel like I have talked somewhat of a big game here with the "I'm going to make my life so simple tra-la-la" line, so I fully expect to be heckled should it take me another MONTH to post an update. Come on, scattered readers- we all know I need to be goaded into actually doing things that are good for me. I'm ready- your best shot, where it hurts, etc.