Clutter

I. Hate. Clutter.

What do you mean, Chara? You leave clean laundry on the chair in your room for up to a week sometimes. Your kitchen table doesn’t ever stay clear for over three hours. You never take your backpack off of the living room floor. Sounds to me like you shouldn’t even complain about “clutter” when it’s your stuff everywhere.

Shhh!

The inner me is revealing my secretive, hypocritical self.

Hi, I’m Chara. I hate clutter.

Also, hi, I’m Chara. I have a cluttered house.

Do I make sense yet?

I didn’t think so.

I haven’t always felt this way. As a young girl, my room was the SLOPPIEST. My sister, who so begrudgingly shared the space with me, was a neat freak and constantly cleaned and organized her part of the room, pushing my stuff over to create a clear dividing line between her side and mine. However, as terrible as I may have been at keeping things tidy, I sure loved the clear feeling when I finally got around to cleaning.

Now, I can’t handle doing things that way. What I’ve noticed over the years, especially lately, my anxiety [if you want to know more about that story, click here] goes through the roof if I’m constantly exposed to a cluttered environment. Although I’m still kind of the ultimate grub, I really do love to keep a clean house.

Now, what I consider clutter may not seem so offensive to anyone else.

What, exactly, is this “clutter” I speak of?

Well, let’s see… Things on walls. Things on floors. Things on surfaces. Things everywhere.

Okay. Let me restart this post…

I. HATE. THINGS. 

What do you mean, Chara? You leave…

No, but in all seriousness, I’ve come to a point in my life where I take a prrrrrettttty minimalistic stance on house and home, and I tolerate fewer THINGS every single day. I’m pretty sure I remove another appliance, bottle of spices, or piece of fruit from my counters on the daily. I’m constantly finding places to stow commonly used items away so they’re out of sight. And if I’m hiding an old bottle of shampoo that I never use anymore, you better believe that thing’s going in the garbage tomorrow because its mere presence [just because I can’t see it, doesn’t mean it’s not there!] will keep me up tonight.

No, I’m not crazy.

I think.

Am I?

Personally, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with this. In fact, I see this as a good thing. They say a cluttered home makes a cluttered mind. Since I can’t handle looking at piles of stuff all over my counters and random things hanging on my walls, I’m more apt to have a clear, tidy, and ZEN home. Honestly, I really don’t care if I don’t have a single painting on my living room wall. You can laugh all you want at my need for space between the cans in my pantry. And so help me, if you recommend that I display my coffee cups rather than hide them in a drawer, I might just pile them all into your arms and offer for you to display them at YOUR house.

No, I’m not being rude [nor am I willing to give you ALL of my coffee cups… butmydrawerisalittlefullsolet’smeetuplateranddiscussouroptions]… I just happen to be very passionate about this subject. I think that my need for emptiness and space in my home is perfectly okay, acceptable, and totally normal.

I’m getting better at cleaning it, too, so lately I’ve really been happier about my surroundings. I’ve finally got the bathroom counter down to just the soap bottle, a candle, lotion, and cotton swab holder (in matching color theme, of course). Our bedroom stays pretty tidy, and I love to lie back under our twinkle lights and look at a single string over the window of pictures of my husband and me on our many adventures. Such a minimal decoration, yet it brings me joy. The living room looks quite nice with mostly just furniture and plants, although I haven’t been the best at vacuuming as often as I should (oops!). I will admit that I finally mustered up the courage to display my limited inventory of decor on one wall in the living room, but I can’t promise it will stay!

 

My dream home is spacious and relaxing. I imagine calming, mist colored walls and large windows for plenty of natural lighting. Each room will likely have a plant, or assortment of plants, for décor. A visitor may spot a Himalayan salt lamp on the end-table, a diffuser among the potted greenery, a small counter-top fountain, or one large, simple framed photo of our wedding on the wall. Other than the lamp and the plants, there won’t be many colors present: gray couches, a neutral rug, and maybe a fuzzy gray blanket thrown over the back of a chair will dominate the living room. The whole house will be a mix of tans, grays, creams, white, and black with slight touches of blush, mustard, and other muted earthy tones. Maybe that sounds extreme, but to me…

lovely.

I may come across as annoying, eccentric, or even pretentious, with this post. I mean no harm or offense to anyone. I’ve written this post simply to pour out some of my passionate thoughts. It’s exactly what the title says: a brain dump. One might venture to say that I was just clearing my mind of the.. eh.. clutter.

heh heh.

okay I’ll leave now.

Thanks for reading!

Until next time,

CHARA