Archive for April, 2010

My clients always want to know what my apartment looks like. Prospective clients too. Most people I meet actually, once they find out what I do. A follow up question is, “Are you organized? What does your place look like?” I think people want to catch me with my junk drawers down. My place is a mess on occasion and I am completely fine with it. Mess being a different issue from dirty…which I’m not so fine with. (Mess = stuff everywhere,  dirty = um… dirty, dust, dirt,

sticky, dust-bunny-madness-running-the-all-star-dirt-show… right?)

I have a small apartment in Venice and if I don’t put my jacket away the place is a mess.  In a small place if you are not on top of every one of your items it doesn’t take much for the place to look frumpy. Having said that about 50% of the time I just don’t care. I will walk in the door with bags on every arm. Drop them, head for the couch with the takeou

Venice Beach, Sketch Image by roberthuffstutter via Flickr

t, watch 6 hours of Mad Men and go straight to bed.  Nothing and I mean nothing, gets put away. (Shocking – I know, but I like to live on the edge.) But those last two words are the key to it all for me and for what I work with clients on. Put away. There is a place for it all to go when motivation strikes and I feel like putting it all away. That is the key to organization – having a place for everything…and trusting yourself to eventually put the thing in the place it lives in.  There is sanity in letting it live both in and out of its place.

and it is still not over.

This post makes me feel very self-involved and unorganized although I’ve had friends (who will remain nameless) who have had very mess birthdays spilling all over the whole month. Dates typically are organized. April 18th. It is contained. It is a day consisting of 24 hours, each hour consisting of 60 minutes and then it is over. Your birthday. Done. Completed. In one day. I guess this is just the birthday hangover. I didn’t drink and I didn’t even really eat and yet I’m emotionally hung over. I’m 38 and I keep saying it – I’ve said it so many times in the hope that the saying of it will make it somehow lessen the sting.

I’m just letting you all know that this tactic is not working.

Image via Wikipedia

I got in my annual birthday car accident and that didn’t really do much for me. That was an accident…but still. Tradition is tradition. Being organized – although I recommend it over the alternative – not much help either. I went to yoga, wrote, talked on the phone, walked, watched movies, did errands,  and slept. None moved me from my funk.

I found being in acceptance that I’m thoroughly and profoundly unhappy about this birthday and most everything right now is the only thing helping me get over me. And I already volunteer so this funk has been beyond even helping others. The true solution I found is luxuriating in my unhappiness. Shocking I know. This is so unpopular in these days of the Secret. Everyone will tell you to focus on what you want and it is yours. They will tell you that what you focus on grows. They will tell you to think happy thoughts. Well, I am experiencing another kind of secret. That feeling your feelings allows them to pass. That letting yourself feel exactly what it is you are feeling in this moment – is the thing that allows it to pass. Even if it that feeling is ugly and unhappy the more fully you embrace it and feel it the more quickly it passes and the stronger you feel as a result. That, is the only secret you’ll ever need to know. And I just learned it – at the ripe, old age of 38. 38. 38.

I hear a lot about being present and I never ever get it. I always think that I do and then the idea slips out of my fingers … slippery, very slippery. Then I get so annoyed with the whole thing. I keep hearing about all of the Law of Attraction ideas – most relating to being in the moment (in order to get the Ferrari you want – oh and the mansion. Sorry to be snarky I’m just that way sometimes.). I’m supposed to be smart, I’m also supposed to understand productivity and time-management and still – these ideas remain a lot of ethereal, sublime bull to me so much of the time. Grrr!!

What is it that I cannot seem to grasp? Oh – this is so, so me. Trying way to hard. Thinking that it is about being smart and about being a certain something that other people have and I don’t. That in ten thousand more hours at my job I’ll know it. This leads in (somehow) to this crazy and insane fight I’ve been having with myself about getting up in the morning to exercise. Now – I usually do get to it at some point in the day to some degree but I’ve decided that smart and successful people do this task in the morning. Also, I just am happier and more sane when I do it in the morning. The back and forth of  “well, I’ll go to the gym at noon, no … how about the 6pm class” and on and on and on is just moot if I exercise at 6am. So… the other kind of argument starts at 6am.

Me: Get. Up. Now.

The other me:  No.

Me: Yes.

The other me: No.

Both of me: Oy.

Today I got to this place of – what is so bad about just putting your feet on the floor? How does that really feel in this moment? How are you feeling right now with your feet walking into the kitchen? And that was that. Because the answer was…I feel really great right now. Exercise began and there was no argument because I wasn’t in the future of how I thought exercise would feel. I was in the exact moment of now. I think maybe I got it. Almost afraid to say. Ha!