cleaning

Yeah, there’s a reason why so many of my photos seem to be only shot in one or two rooms, or only show small, focused parts of our house.

There’s a reason why we never have people over to visit; why I’ve stopped having parties and game nights and overnight guests.

There’s a reason why I’m awake at 1:00 a.m. writing this because I can’t sleep because I’m so stressed out.

We have a serious problem. It’s more than just a problem that’s driving me out of my head, although that’s bad enough.

It’s making me physically sick, too – enough that I’ve had to go to the hospital 5 times in the past three years because I’m so allergic to dust and the house is so full of it.

We have a problem, and it’s time that problem comes out of the closet.

We have too much stuff – way more stuff than we can manage, store or enjoy. Way more stuff than we need.

These photos are just the tip of the iceberg; the garage is equally packed, and the basement is the same way, too. I just haven’t taken pictures there yet because it’s the middle of the night.

I have always had a serious pack rat problem. I don’t want it to appear that I’m blaming anyone. I’m certainly not. And I know I’m not the only one trying to fix it; Stephanie is working hard at this, too. But I’m getting seriously overwhelmed lately; and I’m worried that we’re not making progress at all. We spend all our time organizing, never have any fun, and the clutter just gets worse, not better. And we fight over it, a lot – and that has to stop because I love Stephanie so much; I don’t want this problem to ruin our relationship.
It’s interfering with living our lives, doing our jobs, enjoying what we have and our families and friends, and enjoying the blessing that is our relationship as well.

We really need two things:
1) HELP. Help confronting the problem, help accepting that it’s a problem and help fixing it. To some extent, we need to hire someone to work with us on this. But we sure could use some support from our friends, both in the clean up process and the encouraging us not to bring new items into our house as well.
2) For people to back the hell off. Ease up on seizing control of our time. Let us get this figured out without constantly hijacking our schedules. Understand us when we say we can’t do stuff with you, and lay off the guilt trips. Stephanie and I both have a tendency to say yes to everyone and everything, and we need to knock that off, for our own sanity and well being. We don’t want to blow off our friends; we love you, and care about you. But we can’t always do everything you want us to, and lately I just can’t manage to do anything at all.
I took an entire cruise and spent the whole time stressed out because I wasn’t at home organizing and cleaning stuff. I’m up late tonight because we overloaded our weekend again with events and won’t have time to relax or get anything done. We need time to work on this – lots of it.
This run-away freight train needs to stop, and now.