Coping With More Changes

Organize . . .  reorganize . . . then organize the reorganization. That’s one of my procrastination methods. The action seems to connect my mind and body and environment and gives me a sense of accomplishment, whether the last is true or not.

More often than not, my reorganization methods have caused problems. I remember in Germany when I was constantly rearranging the furniture. The habit emerged as a way to handle my anger. When my first husband came home from his work, he constantly accused me of doing nothing all day. I chose then to clean and rearrange one room a day or a shelf or a closet just so he had visual proof I had done something. He had enough of that, when, in the middle of one night, he got up to pee and returned to where he thought the bed was, only it wasn’t. He landed on the floor.

My second husband tolerated any moving and rearranging much less than the first. I tried to explain I was making things easier or more efficient. “Well, you might think you’re improving things, but I can’t find one damned thing in my own home.”

I began writing. This was in the days before home computers. Y bought me an electric typewriter and provided roles of used print-out paper from his work. I typed merrily away, not needing to hit a return bar or add pieces of paper to the platen. Then I would cut and paste my stories together and retype the whole thing again.

One story I rewrote and reorganized twenty-seven times. “For the Love of Roses” was written from every point of view imaginable: first person, second person, third person, then his view, her view, the omnipotent view. The ending became the beginning and then the middle. Description was taken out and put back in, expanded, then I practiced giving everything a color.

The story eventually was the linchpin for my first novel, “An Awakening”, which made the rounds of publishers until it came to live in the lower drawer of one filing cabinet.

In the early years of my living on my own after Y passed away, I found I rearranged stuff when I fretted. Recently I realized I organize and reorganize when I was out of sorts. In fact, very recently I was in such a state, I de-organized. Whatever was going on in me caused me to pull items and files and clothes and oddities from every corner of the closets, house, and garage. I stuck them in empty containers in no specific order and distributed those plastic and cardboard boxes throughout my small bungalow in such disarray I couldn’t walk a clear path from the front door to the bedroom.

I kept to my regular schedule of life, made my meetings, paid my bills. When I realized I couldn’t move about in my garage anymore and I was on the verge of having to park the car in the drive way, I sat down and took stock of my actions.

We live our lives in patterns which build over time. When some part of that pattern becomes thread-bare and dissolves into a hole, we face an emptiness. With effort, we often fill in the hole the best way we can by integrating newer threads to save the pattern. Sometimes the pattern can’t be saved.

Metaphorically, I believe, I was searching through all the paraphernalia I’ve gathered around me for something suitable to recreate the template I’ve used for my entire life. Nothing fit. Nothing could replace the hole or the whole of it. I couldn’t just rearrange things to cover over these changes. I was also procrastinating by creating more circles around myself. The boxes and detritus I stacked were between me and the front door. I was barricading myself in, going outside on my terms, but making it hard for anyone else to come in. It gave me an excuse to be alone because who would ever be able to climb over those boxes, those defenses, to get to me again, to reach into my core, to know me?

Only me.

I finally stopped.

I cleared and cleaned, returning most things to the order I had created when I moved into this space. Some items got donated. Some projects got thrown away. I can now dance in the kitchen and living room, walk around the dining table and bed. I also have a direction and a commitment to promises I’ve made to myself about wishes and dreams.

Who knows how this would have ended if I hadn’t stopped to look at what I was doing? The pain I released when I realized my life had changed again and I needed to change with it could have suffocated me. Organizing and reorganizing served me one more time. Now I am going to call these actions my coping tools. I’m sharing this story for a purpose.

In “An Awakening”, Sue, the main character, was in a similar re-patterning challenge. Her counselor suggested she pick one drawer in her home to reorganize. Just one. Sue found that when she focused entirely on that project, she felt a small spark of hope and one of accomplishment. Have you ever tried this?  I’d love to read about what coping tool you use to help yourself feel OK about yourself and how your life is going.