I suffer from piles.
There. I've said it. It's not a complaint we like to discuss, but I'm opening up here, in the hope of finding support from fellow sufferers.
There are piles of paper on the desk. There are piles of magazines, and catalogues, and junk mail, and more paper on the bookcase in the hallway. There is a pile of books on my bedside cabinet. There's a pile of coins and receipts on my bedroom window sill. There's a pile of laundry on my bed. There's a pile of ironing in the kitchen. There's a pile of clean washing outside each child's bedroom door (the rule is, they put it away). There's another pile of papers on the kitchen window sill.
Every now and again I have an attack on the piles, and get rid of them. But they grow back.
I aspire to a minimalist house, where there's a place for everything, and everything has its place. Everything is away, out of sight, or tidily arranged and decorative. But I've been aspiring for several years... decades... and I think I've just got to accept that I'm just not a minimalist. How do you minimalists do it? Do you spend hours a day wandering through your clean lines homes, admiring the grey and white colour scheme, and pouncing on every stray item with lioness alacrity, before settling down to your hour of solitary evening meditation? Did you go to minimalist training school, where they rooted out all your cluttery habits, teaching you better, sleeker ways of living? Or were you born so strongly minimalist that you were able to resist the onslaught of untidiness and disorder? Perhaps you just have a lot of visitors, and therefore a high incentive to keep your house looking lovely.
I have come to the conclusion that, for me, an alternative strategy is more realistic. Instead of trying to fit my square peg self into a round minimalist hole (it would be round, wouldn't it? No sharp corners or edges, just a perfect smooth circle), I think I need to learn to love my inability to keep the anarchy of the piles at bay. I must accept that flat surfaces, of their very nature, attract things being left on top of them. I mean, at least the chaos is in piles, and not just strewn randomly around. I should learn to understand a pile of stuff not as a failing in tidiness, but as a beautiful demonstration of a busy life. I should look around and see a cosy, relaxed home, where items are able to find their own space and chill out, without fear of being hustled out of sight into an unwelcoming cupboard or drawer, or - worse still - the recycling.
Or I need to make the acquaintance of the piles fairy. How do I do that?
.
In my mind's eye, I want no clutter. But actually, when the house is too tidy, I don't like it and feel that a few piles make it more homely.
ReplyDeleteI suffer from this too. I find it impossible to remove all the piles. My house doesn't have enough storage. It's weird as I don't have that much stuff! I miss having an under the stairs cupboard. I have no where to put the Hoover etc which adds mess to my living room. Argh. How do tidy people do it?
ReplyDeleteI don't suffer from it, so much. But my husband, children and (oh god, expat confession coming up) cleaner do, so I still have to live with them. Which can be very uncomfortable now I come to think about it...
ReplyDeleteYou could be describing me! I suffer from piles too, and also Flat Surface Syndrome (if there is a flat surface, something will be put on it) but from now on I am going to adopt your very positive attitude and just accept that these piles are an outward sign of a busy and fullfilled life. :)
ReplyDeleteI have a friend that doesn't have visible piles. I think she's hiding them. Sometimes I try to get a sneeky peek at where they might be but so far I've not managed to dig deep enough. I have a horrendous pile problem. I think that's all you need to know about my issues.
ReplyDeleteHello from a fellow sufferer!
ReplyDeleteI could be a minimalist but for that to happen I would need to live alone.
I also do the laundry pile outside the kid's bedroom doors, which then gets kicked into their room and mingles with the dirty pile of washing on their floor which eventually gets scooped up by me and gets washed again andturned back into a clean laundry pile outside their bedroom door; and so the cycle continues!
I recently realized there is a direct correlation between piles and surface area. As we move, I am going to decrease the number of surfaces for piles to collect - no kitchen island, no shelving in the kids rooms. I'll report back as to how it goes :) You are not alone in your struggle!
ReplyDeleteAll three of my kids are at a camp for three days and one of my Intended Missions while they were gone was to declutter the family room, but here it is, 2 days in, and I've done nothing. I'd like someone else to declutter my house because it's just too big a job. I'm not quite at the "Woman Suffocates And Dies Under Piles Of Rubbish!!!" Daily Mail stage, but one room IS getting there. There always seems to be something more amusing to do, doesn't there? And who really wants to have "She Lived A Minimalist Life!" on their epitaph? Not me.
ReplyDeleteUm, of course, neither do I want "Woman Dies Under Piles Of Rubbish!!!!" as my epitaph. And thus I dither on...
And I hate dealing with letters and cards. And photos of other people's kids. I never know what to do with them. It seems inhumane to toss them out, but where do you put them? And flyers. And brochures...sigh. I even have virtual piles in my inbox.
ReplyDeleteHa! Ha! I love the title of this blog post. We also suffer from piles. It drives me nuts. Our main problem is piles of the kids' art work. We spend a lot of time drawing and colouring and painting and it all gets stacked away in the corner 'til I find the time to go through it. But like you said, it is the sign of a busy family life, and so I try to tell myself that I am allowing the kids to have all this time and space to be creative and surely that has to be a good thing! It always makes my heart sink though when I see the piles get so high they start to topple over of their own accord.
ReplyDelete