Pestilence

Hello. I have a confession to make. I... am a slob. Yes, it is true. I am not neat. I am not tidy. I leave things in piles, I do not alphabetize, color code, reverse chronologize or plain chronologize. I know OF these practices, but fail to see how they relate to me and my life, and find them sort of quaint in others.

Let's call sloppiness the left, and neatness the right. I have a few friends who veer very far to the right. These friends admit that their neatness is related to an obsessive-compulsiveness that may or may not be a disorder. They can be made to feel physical discomfort if an element of their physical world is moved out of place; a disordered space leads to a disordered mind which leads to a disordered body.

I myself veer to the far left. I, in turn, admit that my slovenliness is related to a mild form of depression/anxiety which may or may not be a disorder. The difference is that I don't feel physical discomfort in a neat space. Rather, I can be made to feel physical discomfort if I either I am urged by someone else to neaten and organize, or if my sloppiness has gotten to such a state that I am ashamed to have someone else witness it.

As I've grown older I've learned to compartmentalize my sloppiness. When living with roommates, I make sure that I keep common areas clean, and have the door to my room always shut so no one has to be offended by the clothes on the floor, piles of paper on the desk, books everywhere, etc. My car is another compartmentalized space, and discarded paper bags, CD's and coffee cups tend to build up in the front and back seats.

I've long tried to believe that I can maintain a live and let live philosophy as regards the lefties and the righties. I can be messy as long as it doesn't impinge on others, and they can be neat as long as they don't make me join them in trying to impose order on chaos. Unfortunately, I've decided I can't really continue. My family is convinced that my messiness is harming my physical health (they think eczema is caused by dust) and I've realized that I can't really function in polite society as a messy person. I have to take my car in to get work done, so that can't be messy, and I live at home now, so I can't really be messy there either.

It's not a huge deal - I can be neat. I don't mind the repetitive task of cleaning, and all it takes is a few minutes out of a day or an hour or so out of a week.

Still tho', something rankles. The righties don't have to change. They are free to express their mild mental illness in peace, because society accepts it, man. But how am I supposed to express malaise and existential angst now, huh? The only form of aggression I like to indulge in is passive aggression, and now I'm willingly giving that up. I expect I shall now become actively aggressive, and society won't like that either. Society is such a whiny little bitch. (See? It's happening already. I rest my case.)