Captain’s Log Day 15 – I think I suck at this.

There is something to be said for balance. A natural coexistence between you and the planet. After my many years here, I am still struggling to find it. Oddly enough, this strikes a particularly ironic chord for me since my generation is supposed to be “the middle”. This had held true for most of my life to date. Never the best at anything, but never the worst. Not the smartest, but average intelligence on most days. The middle ground is where one should find balance I thought. And yet, here I am. Completely out of it. You may say….”if you want to be better, try harder.” But then that would also throw off the balance, shifting time and priorities from one effort to the other. Nope…I am convinced that it’s time I face the reality. There are things that I just suck at. To put a finer point on it, it’s organization. There. I said it. It is difficult for me to exist in a space that is cluttered. My brain doesn’t want to function. I get agitated. My hands get restless and my brow furrows. And if you really want to see my head spin, put stuff around the room that I could potentially bump into. Holy hell. Today, I am off work. It’s MLK day and I wanted to spend it remembering Dr. King and taking the opportunity to do something to improve my life. Enter….organize my office. This room is a mixture of action figures, comic books, guitars, guitar parts, books, ball caps, candles and art supplies. In short, everything in my head realized in tangible objects. This issue is….its a mess! I guess that says a lot about my head too now that I think about it. I started with the books. But then that led me to want to organize the shelves, which was made more difficult by the displacement of all the stuff that was there originally. Let me also point out that I have been educating myself on the idea of minimalism. I’ve read up on the subject. I also read Maria Kondo’s book on Tidying up. The problem is…It all brings me joy. I love my guitars. I can’t choose just one ball cap. Who doesn’t need   a 12″ tall Aquaman with bendable joints and a trident? I know I can store my movies in the cloud. But I like the feel of a blu ray and the sound it makes when you close the little drawer on the front of the player. It all stays. So…back to the original issue. Organization. I put things into piles of like objects. So all of the things I mentioned above are in little quadrants of the room in piles. And here I am, in the middle of them. Agitated and feeling a headache coming on. I suppose I could hire a professional organizer to come in and assist me with my vision. But then, they would likely tell me that I expect too much. A clutter less space where there are things only when I need to access them. And likely, too many things at that. Which leads me to the second revelation of the day. Not only do I suck at organization. I suck at asking for help. So here I sit. Time passing steadily by. The longer I am here, the less stressed I become about it. I can feel the middle coming on. The balance that comes from acceptance of who you are and admitting it.

Thank you Dr. King. If anyone had the best words, it was you.

“You will change your mind; You will change your looks; You will change your smile, laugh, and ways but no matter what you change, you will always be you.” MLK