You're reading Well, aren't you? Admit it. It's awful (but somehow not quite so horribly guilt-inducing as Jane "I'm healthier than you because I work at it, damnit" Brody). This line, from an entry that's been getting attention, struck me:
Although chronic disorganization is not a medical diagnosis, therapists and doctors sometimes call on professional organizers to help patients. One of them is Lynne Johnson, a professional organizer from Quincy, Mass., who is president of the National Study Group on Chronic Disorganization.
Ms. Johnson explains that some people look at a shelf stacked with coffee mugs and see only mugs. But people with serious disorganization problems might see each one as a unique item -- a souvenir from Yellowstone or a treasured gift from Grandma.
I'm trying to be a good girl as I get ready to go see Dr. Wow. In particular, I am trying to get through one of the two teensy tiny tasks I claimed I'd complete before going out there. This involves lots of waiting as my old laptop churns through data, so I thought I'd try to make some headway on my office mess, too. Just take a couple of things off the top of the stacks, decide what to toss, what to file. Small steps.
The first folder I pick up turns out to be all the papers I have left from my mother's collapse into psychosis in late 1997. That's the time she was picked up naked in the street (W. 127th, in case you were wondering) by the NYPD. It took most of a day to find her because she gave a false name at the hospital and because I didn't recognize her as she cowered, near fetal, on a stretcher. I spent the next several months driving back and forth to New York trying to manage her aftercare, her applications for public assistance, her dog, everything.
[It was also the year I was on the market -- the label on the folder reads "TOTALLY REJECTED JOB ADS," which I think meant things Beaker really didn't want me to even apply for. And the year I failed to finish my dissertation -- or perhaps I should say, the last year I failed to finish my dissertation.]
It's all in there. Long streams of notes from confusing phone calls. Her discharge orders, and, somehow, crazily, most of her chart. Receipts from the drugs I paid for. Her bills. Copies of her address book, her checkbook, her passport. Dog boarding bills. Notes on the friends of friends who took care of the dog when I was trying to avoid paying to board it.
Oh, and one note asking me to call uncle Ricky at some motel in Las Vegas. He usually called me asking for money back then. I usually didn't give it to him, and never gave him much.
Now, most of the paper that's stacked over a foot high over the two large desks in here is not this incendiary. I think I know how this managed to be on top -- it used to be buried in a bookcase in a corner, next to years of old Filofax pages, but then the bookcase was cleared and moved downstairs to house Miss T.'s growing literary collection.
Still. The things that are out, the things that are getting in the way, they do all mean something. Every stack is an unmet commitment, an abandoned hope, a disappointed colleague, an annoyed friend. This folder? Went into a drawer. The rest? I need to to get over it all, somehow.
Meanwhile: 22 hours to Lupron, and 38 to getting on a plane going the wrong direction.
I really loathe decluttering articles right after the holidays. They're right up there with the non-stop ads for weight loss products, fitness equipment, and stop-smoking drugs.
Grrrrr.
[Good luck with the lupron, travels, etc.]
Posted by: Jody | Monday, January 07, 2008 at 12:51 PM