Thoughts on Graduation: At Least They Don’t Eat Bugs Anymore

Posted on June 13, 2013 by midlifemeg

A momentous occasion is happening today: my youngest child is graduating from high school.

As usual, the clichés are all true. It really does seem like just a short time ago, she was following me down the sidewalk with a lunchbox bigger than her five-year-old head. This post isn’t really about that, although I’ve been shaking off those thoughts all morning.

The thing that’s freaking me out is this: although my daughter is almost 18, and my son is 20, suddenly I feel like a brand-new parent all over again.

When each of them was born, I felt excited, terrified, proud, overwhelmed—like every other new parent. The stakes were high: life and death. If I slept too hard, they might suffocate in their crib. If I chose the wrong foods, they might have an allergic reaction. If I failed to pay attention or made the wrong decision, I could ruin them or even lose them for good.

To make matters worse, it seemed like for the first few years of their lives, they were actively trying to kill themselves. You know how it is with babies and toddlers: turn your back for a second and they’re sticking their fingers into light sockets, wandering out into traffic, trying to eat toxic substances….remember?

You probably see where I’m going with this.

Parenting an almost-adult feels exactly the same. The stakes aren’t life or death anymore, but they’re still high. Decisions my kids make at this stage will absolutely impact the quality of their lives for years. In some ways, early adulthood is a trajectory, and a degree of difference now can have a big impact on where they wind up in a decade or so.

There are the big life decisions, like where to go to college, and what field to study. Whether they’ll follow their passions or follow a paycheck. Then there are those insidious, spur-of-the-moment choices that could change their lives forever: driving drunk, just once. Skipping the condom, just once. All the time, every day, whether they realize it or not, my newly adult children will be making choices that determine the courses of their futures.

So yeah, I’m not sleeping very well these days, just like when they were babies. I’m constantly second-guessing myself, just like when they were babies. And some days, they seem like they’re actively trying to ruin themselves, just like when they were babies.

They don’t stick their fingers in light sockets any more, but some of the choices they make are just as stupid. And just like “Don’t eat that bug” didn’t make sense to them when they were toddlers, my pearls of wisdom are lost on them at this age, too. They speak English now but they don’t speak Perspective. I probably sound like an adult from a Peanuts cartoon: “Wah wah wah, wah wah, wah.” I want so badly to help them through these tough years, but I can’t. They have to grow up on their own.

I don’t mean to sound negative—this time is very exciting! It’s like when they were learning to walk: they fell down a lot. I wasn’t any less proud of them for it. (Can you imagine? “Get up, you little hobo, learn to walk right!”). It’s worrisome and frustrating, but that’s what kids do when they’re learning to walk. At this age, they’re kids one minute and adults the next, and I love them either way. They make me angry, sure, but they also surprise and delight me with the people they’re becoming.

Last night I went to my son’s apartment—his first—and there he was, living like a starving twenty-something, nothing in the fridge. He’s working, going to school and barely scraping by. I’m so proud of him I could bust. I’m so worried about him I can’t sleep. He’s right where he’s supposed to be, and I guess is this is probably just how I’m supposed to feel.

And today my daughter will graduate. My heart’s all swelled up with tenderness for her. Like when your baby starts to smile and coo—you knew it was coming, and every kid does it, but there’s something so magical and heartwarming when it’s YOUR kid. I know I’m going to lose it when I see her in the cap and gown. I’m excited, terrified, proud, overwhelmed—just like 17 years ago.

Congratulations and good luck to all the graduates in the blogosphere today, and to their parents, too.

The Call of the Wild

Posted on June 4, 2013 by midlifemeg

I can’t quite put my finger on when it started. I can’t even tell you exactly what it is. Midlife crisis? Wanderlust? A nagging dissatisfaction, the inability to muster normal enthusiasm for my normal life, the feeling that none of this matters. And the urge to walk away from it all.

Today on my way to work, I stopped for breakfast at a neighborhood bagel shop. I walked from the overcast morning into the crowded, noisy interior. Trying to discern where the line formed, I looked at the selection of bagels in the case—a dozen flavors or more—and I walked right back outside. Too many people, too many bagels, too much light and noise and UGH.

I stood on the sidewalk in front of my car and thought, “What would happen if I just got in my car and drove away?”

Well, the dogs would starve, for one. That’s not right. Also I’m not a jerk, so I wouldn’t leave my family or my job with no warning like that.

Of course I can’t just drive away, but I can’t remember another time in my life when the urge was this strong. I don’t like it.

Part of the problem is Yosemite. Victor took me there in April.

Have you seen Yosemite? Have you SMELLED it?

When I walked through Yosemite Valley, I was so overwhelmed by the beauty of it that I would close my eyes because they felt too full. Everything, everywhere, in every direction: beautiful. At night I was grateful for the sparseness of the tent cabin, for the visual reprieve, time to close my eyes and catalog the memories of the day so I would not forget the cliffs or the trees or the waterfalls or the stars.

Nevada Fall in Yosemite. Crazy beautiful.

Vernal Fall in Yosemite. Crazy beautiful.

We hiked to the base of Vernal Fall and sat on a huge boulder with the river crashing around us. We ate wasabi almonds. This is what wilderness affords you: moments so grand that you MUST live them singularly. Sensory input so vivid and demanding that it drives away all but the immediate, so the only thing that matters is right now: how the granite feels, how the river sounds, how the trees smell and how the almonds taste.

You know what doesn’t matter when you’re sitting on a boulder in Yosemite Valley? Rent. Your boss’s mood. Whether your kid will graduate high school. Whether you’ll find a better job or be successful or figure out what to do with your life when you’re already 41 and it’s halfway over anyway, for chrissakes. None of that matters in Yosemite. It’s like the inverse of Vegas: what happens outside of Yosemite STAYS outside of Yosemite.

So now I’m home and all of those things are weighing on me. My kids are doing their best to screw up their lives and my job got cut in half and the ghetto cottage is on the block so I don’t know how long I can live there. I’m so overwhelmed that I can’t order a freaking bagel. I don’t even want a bagel. I just want pine trees and dirt. And a river.

Also, I just finished reading Wild, by Cheryl Strayed, and that’s not helping either. Her life tanked, so she packed it in and decided to hike the Pacific Crest Trail. She spent several months hiking alone through California and Oregon. She hardly ever got to take a shower. She had to dig holes to poop in, and her toenails fell off. It’s not a glamorous tale.

Wild should make me NOT want to run away to the forest. It should make me grateful for indoor plumbing and restaurants and such. But I understand why she chose to forgo those things for the wilderness, and I see the appeal more than I even want to.

While she was hiking, Strayed had nothing but the moment she was living. She had few choices. She had no bills. No one was expecting anything from her. She was not expecting anything from anyone else. She walked until she was exhausted, then she read, then she slept. She confronted physical threats as they materialized: thirst, exhaustion, injuries, bears. Only the immediate mattered.

I might be romanticizing the wilderness lifestyle a wee bit. Obviously, I don’t want to poop in a hole. I know that my sweet weekend getaway to Yosemite is not akin to wandering the Sierras with all my possessions on my back. Perhaps if I lived in a tent for a while, I would gladly write my rent check in exchange for the comforts it buys me. Perhaps if I were really faced with bears and rattlesnakes, I would complain less about my teenager.

And that’s kind of the point…I don’t want to run away so much as I want a break in perspective. Being in the wilderness helps me see my problems on a different scale. It makes me feel small in a good way; it helps me boil things down to the essentials. That’s what I want: to be concerned only with the immediate. To stop worrying about the kids, the job, the bills—all of it—if not forever, then for a summer or even a week. Fewer choices, more freedom—just for a while.

Meg for Hire: Now with Big-Girl Pants!

Posted on May 16, 2013 by midlifemeg

I’m job hunting– blech. But this time, I’m going at it a little differently– and the process has got me thinking. (Thinking happens right before blogging, usually.)

When I first started working, I was a receptionist for a real estate investment company. I knew nothing about real estate or investments. One day, I heard some managers complaining about writing investor newsletters. In my naive, twenty-something confidence, I said, “I can write. I’ll write your newsletters.”

They let me write the newsletters. I just figured it out as I went along. Their existing newsletters looked kind of stupid, so I taught myself some desktop publishing software and redesigned them. Then, since I knew how to create newsletters, they started letting me create marketing materials.

Fast-forward eight years: I had become the marketing communications manager. I was thirty years old, with no degree, purely self-taught. I was hiring, training and managing a team of employees. I was responsible for all marketing and corporate communications company-wide. I sat at the conference table with the bigwigs, and I held my own—on the outside, anyway.

On the inside, I still felt like a receptionist. Like I was at that table to take notes, not contribute. I felt like no one took me seriously because I was “just a receptionist” who got promoted.

Never mind that they paid me seriously. Never mind that they trusted me to run a department. Never mind that I wrote a training class designed to introduce newbies to the business. My self-confidence never caught up.

When I left that job, I believed my success at the real estate investment group was just a fluke. I felt like a sham. “I’m not REALLY a marketing communications manager…I couldn’t actually just do that job at any other company…I just got lucky.” I began to believe that no one would hire me at management level; I’d have to start small and work my way up again.

Self-fulfilling prophecies suck. It’s been 11 years since I left the real estate group. Since then, I’ve held some lesser communications jobs and done lots of admin work. The recession didn’t help, and some of my stagnation was due the lousy job market. But mostly, my lack of self-confidence is to blame.

My current job allows me some freedom to pursue other avenues of income, so I’ve decided to try some freelancing again. I shined up my resume and enlisted my boyfriend to help me set up a web site. I began to dig through my files, looking for work samples for my portfolio.

It’s been quite a dig, uncomfortable and encouraging at the same time. With the perspective gained over the last decade, I feel more objective as I look through my old work samples. I’m surprised to find that I still like them—they’re pretty good. I look at my resume and think, wow—I really did all that stuff! Why did I think I wasn’t qualified? I did the work, I did it well, and I did it with little formal education or training.

All that insecurity—where did it come from? I was focusing on what I lacked—a four-year degree—instead of what I had. What I had was the ability to figure things out on my own. Is there any more valuable skill? Well, maybe the skill to develop a network of experts to help you when you’re in over your head—oh wait! I did that, too!

So here I am back on the market, with a few more years under my belt. I’ve worked a lot of places and I’ve sat in a boatload of meetings. I’ve met plenty of bigwigs and worked on plenty of projects doing all kinds of office-y things. Here is what I’ve learned: most of corporate America is essentially faking it. The posturing, the lingo, the warrants of expertise—that’s how people stall while they figure out what to do next. Everyone is figuring it out as they go along. It’s all about how fast you learn and how well you can flex to each new scenario, each new personality, and each new environment.

In other words, I’m totally qualified.

Some people have more education than me. Some people have more specific experience. Some have certain talents that do not come naturally to me. But I can sit at a table with any one of them and contribute—because I bring my own combination of education, experience and talent, and I can figure things out with the best of ‘em.

I know I sound a little like Stuart Smalley here. (“I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me!”) I don’t care. Job hunting is very hard on the ego. If I have to give myself a little pep talk every day to get through it, I will.

Here’s the shiny new portfolio site: www.megfaulkner.com. My resume is on there, too. But only you, blog readers, will know about my little self-confidence issue. Everyone else will only see my big-girl pants.

A little positive self-talk can’t hurt. I will avoid the jazz-hands.

Work, Luck & Payoffs– or, Some People Are Already Badass

Posted on April 16, 2013 by midlifemeg

This post was prompted by another blogger, Beth Brousil. I always enjoy her posts. Beth was mulling over the expression, “The harder I work, the luckier I get.” In her post, she talks about working hard for a break in the art world. Some artists get a break, and some don’t. Is that based on hard work? Or just luck?

Both, says I. Some people work their hineys off and reap financial rewards. But some people—particularly in the creative world—work their hineys off and never enjoy the luck, or the break, that results in the recognition or payoff they’ve been hoping for. Meanwhile, others who seem less talented or less deserving get recognized and make a bazillion dollars. And that sucks.

I often discuss this with my dear friend, Valerie Noble. I’ve known Valerie since I was 10 years old. Now I have the great pleasure of working with her every day. Most days, I subject her to my entire stream of consciousness while we sit in the office. Lucky girl!

Anyway, Valerie wrote a novel. It’s young adult sci-fi, and it’s good. Really. You may think that I am biased, and maybe I am. However, when friends ask me to read their writing projects, I usually cringe. I’m pretty critical, and very honest, but I’m also kind. Which means that usually, when people say, “Read this and let me know what you think,” I’m screwed.

Now, Valerie is a smart woman. I know she’s an avid reader with great taste in books. (More precisely, my taste in books. I borrow hers all the time.) She’d been working on her book for a long time and had input from a few different readers, so her manuscript wasn’t raw. So when she asked me to edit her book, I figured well, it won’t be terrible, anyway. Plus she was going to pay me to edit it.

I sat down with my pencil, ready to edit. Somewhere in the first chapter, I dropped the pencil because I was too engrossed in the story to notice the mechanics. I stayed up until two in the morning and finished the book in one sitting—just like I did with The Hunger Games.

Yep—it’s REALLY good.

So now she’s working on getting it published. She did everything she was supposed to. She researched the proper format for manuscripts and how to write a good query letter. She began to self-promote by starting a blog and a Twitter account, and networking with other authors and agents. She sent out query letters in search of an agent, and she got one! She has worked, and worked, and worked.

I hope with every fiber of my being that it gets published. It’s like she’s my pregnant friend, and I’m waiting for the baby. Whenever she calls me, my first thought is always, “Is this IT? Did she get a book deal?”

She deserves it. We all want it for her. But the truth is, a book deal may or may not happen and we have no control over that.

This is what I’ve told her from the very beginning: whether she gets published or not, she has already achieved something GREAT. How many people could be that creative, to conceptualize a novel? How many people are full of ideas, but never execute them? How many people start but don’t finish? She had the creativity and the discipline to actually get it done. And she had the humility and sensibility to subject it to the criticism of others and work out all the kinks. Then she did the boring, discouraging work of querying agents.

Did I mention she did this while she was in school full time, working, and a mom?

If the right reader from the right publisher reads her manuscript at the right time, she will get a book deal. But whether or not that happens, Valerie is already a success. Yes, I hope she gets recognized and I hope she gets paid for her work. But I could not be any more impressed than I already am. I could not admire her more than I do right now. She conquered all the dragons we all fight: self-doubt, a busy schedule, distraction, writer’s block… and she did it anyway. Now she is working on the sequel.

Back to the expression, “The harder I work, the luckier I get.” Maybe working hard doesn’t always result in lucky breaks. But it does generate results. In Val’s case, it produced an engaging, original book. It also gave her the confidence to start a second. It opened a new world—the world of writing and publishing—that she had never explored before. She’s earned the admiration of family and friends who’ve read the book and encouraged her. She’s got an incredible sense of accomplishment. And she got her story out—she gave life to the characters born in her imagination.

Here’s another expression we’ve all heard before: the joy is in the journey. Seems that there’s quite a bit of payoff in the journey, too. We have to learn to recognize the other kinds of payoffs—not just fame and fortune. I deeply respect people who have the courage and discipline to pursue their passions, whether or not they become commercially successful.

Fingers crossed that it happens for her. She has definitely earned it. Because the book is with a literary agent now, I can’t tell you too much about it—seems there are rules about that. But if you want to know more about Valerie or follow her journey, you can read her blog here.

Me and my badass writer friend, Valerie Noble.

Everyone should have a badass writer friend for inspiration. Valerie is mine.

Anything Would Do…

Posted on April 5, 2013 by midlifemeg

When I was a kid, there was a 7-11 on the corner near my house. The parking lot was walled by a cinder block fence, and there was a cinder block dumpster enclosure in one corner. There weren’t any dumpsters in it, so I didn’t know that’s what it was. I just thought it was a special little outside room with no roof.

I wanted the dumpster enclosure—badly– for a clubhouse. I remember thinking it would be so cool– I could make a little roof and put a bed in there, and it was just big enough to put my stuff in. I would check it out every time we passed, and no one was ever using it. I figured if I asked nicely, maybe the owner of 7-11 would give me the dumpster enclosure and I could live in it. Oh, I would be so happy if I could just have that dumpster enclosure for my very own.

This is the enclosure I wanted. They’ve upgraded it since I was a kid; now it has a roof and even landscaping. Dreamy! Too bad they put a dumpster in it.

Of course, I grew up, and my ambitions outgrew the dumpster enclosure. First I wanted an apartment. Preferably an apartment like the one on Too Close for Comfort, with rainbows on the walls—but any apartment would do. By the time I got an apartment, it was 1994, so instead of rainbows I had country blue hand-me-down furniture. But I was fine with that—for a while.

Then I developed a burning desire to own something. Anything would do, as long as it was mine. In 2001 I bought a grimy condominium wherein every surface was either dusty rose or mildew-colored. I can’t imagine why anyone other than a five-year-old girl would want so much pink. But that pink condo was mine, and once I cleaned that sucker up and painted over the pink with fashionable Tuscan colors, I loved it. For a while. Until I started to want a house.

Oh, how I wanted a house. Any house would do, as long as it was mine. My condo was cool, but it didn’t have a yard or a family room and it wasn’t big enough to host my family and suddenly, it just wouldn’t do. I had to have a house.

Well, I bought a house. Not just any house—I bought the house I grew up in. Just an ordinary ranch house in an ordinary suburb, with an extraordinary wealth of childhood memories in every room. It had a swimming pool, a garden, and a garage to keep my hoard of craft supplies and half-done projects. It had an antique piano in the living room. Not only was the dining room big enough to host my family, it was the very dining room in which we’d celebrated every major holiday since my parents bought it in 1979. It was more than mine; it was ours. How I loved that house.

Until.

I wish there were no “until,” but there is. I loved that house until I had to sell it or lose it to foreclosure. An extended period of unemployment (2008-2011, just like everybody else) left me behind on the mortgage and nothing I did was enough to catch up. It broke my heart to sell it. Still hurts to write about it.

I was in a crisis, earning half of what I’d earned before the recession, and I had to find a place I could afford—anything would do, with one tricky criteria: I wanted to keep my dogs. I had to find a place that would rent to me with two pit bulls. In case you don’t know, that is like trying to find a place that will rent to me and my herd of water buffalo. It’s really freaking difficult. People questioned my priorities: you’re broke, and you have no place to go, and you’re going to keep those dogs? Yes, dammit, I already lost my house; I’m not losing my dogs, too.

Would you give up this dog? Me neither. (Photo credit: Maddy Faulkner)

So I found one: a two-bedroom apartment that allowed pit bulls. Lucky me! Except I hated it. I tried to feel grateful because I wasn’t homeless, which is kind of a big deal. And I had my dogs, which was even something of a luxury. But I hated that damn apartment. I hated the crowded laundry room and the stupid ranchero music blasting all weekend and the idiot who parked his truck in my space and the damn yapping Chihuahuas across the way and did I mention there were COCKROACHES? (Cockroaches actually make me cry.) I hated that apartment EVERY DAY. I knew I was lucky to have it, but I couldn’t wait to leave.

Enter the ghetto cottage. You can read about it here. It’s funky and older than dirt, and I was stoked to get it. It’s cheap and they don’t mind my dogs and it even comes with an exterminator. Every day I am grateful for my own laundry, my own driveway, my yard, etc.

So what prompted this little walk down memory lane? Well, the GC finally got a paint job. I had been waiting for the paint job for six months. I was so excited when they told me it was getting painted, it was like Christmas and my birthday all at once. Then I had a tiny meltdown. WHAT ABOUT THE COLOR? WHAT IF I DON’T LIKE IT? WAIT, IS THAT PEACH? GOD ALMIGHTY, PEACH AND RED?!?

Have you ever gotten on your own nerves? I drove myself nuts obsessing about the color, when the proper response was to be grateful for the paint job. As often happens when I freak out, the reasonable part of my brain started to laugh at the crazy part. Criminy Meg, shut up. Out of the blue, I remembered that dumpster enclosure, and the kid who longed for four cinder block walls of her very own.

Oh yeah…perspective.

The ghetto cottage looks a million times better with the new paint, even though the color is a bit weird. Now I feel even luckier to have it. As with everything in life, the key is to focus on the positive aspects while you’re working to improve the rest. The truth is that I have everything I need, and then some.

You can’t see the red behind the security door, but it’s there. But look how pretty that white trim is! Woo!

This is the back door. (It goes to the laundry room. I love the laundry room.)

The Proper Use of Weekends

Posted on February 14, 2013 by midlifemeg

Those of you who’ve been reading for a while may be wondering how it’s going with Mr. Wonderful.

It’s going wonderfully, of course.

I’m trying not to bore (or gag) everyone with tales from Cloud Nine, so I’ve been blogging about other things. Still, Mr. Wonderful (his name is Victor, and he approves this message) has been teaching me a thing or two and I think they’re worth sharing. I’ll try not to overdo it. I don’t want any eye-rolling out there.

The most dramatic lesson I’m learning has to do with the proper use of weekends. Here is something I never quite grasped: every weekend is, potentially, a mini-vacation and should be treated accordingly.

I’ve been a single working mom forever. Historically, my weekends were for laundry and housework, sandwiched between errands and maybe some trips to the park. Every other weekend, when the kids were with their dad, I’d have the same dilemma: should I get some rest or go have fun? Or accomplish things that cannot be accomplished with kids underfoot? Most of my weekends were squandered in an indecisive state of “should”…I should be dealing with that pile of paper; I should be painting the living room; I should be getting a jump on cooking for the week.

I live 20 minutes from the beach and an hour from beautiful mountains. I live in Orange County, one of the most desirable locations in the world, and I seldom take advantage of it. I never go anywhere. I have been to the beach no more than three times in the past five years, because there was always housework or some other priority. What’s wrong with me?!?

Since I started dating Victor—just four months ago!—all that has changed. With Vic, I’ve hiked to a waterfall, visited Catalina Island (wow), and scrambled among tide pools. I’ve visited new places and made new friends. We never miss a chance to go to the beach. It’s a matter of prioritizing.

I actually go places now. This was at the Wrigley Memorial– one of many magical moments during our Catalina Island trip.

It’s Not About What’s Closer

Here’s an example. One Sunday morning, we didn’t have anything planned, so we were going to go to Homegoods and look for wall décor. We went online to find a Homegoods location.

Meg: There’s one in Seal Beach and one in Costa Mesa.

Vic: Hmmm…which one should we go to?

Meg: Well, Costa Mesa is closer.

Vic: It’s not about what’s closer. If we go to the one in Seal Beach we can have breakfast by the beach and then take PCH up.

So, what would have felt like running an errand on a Sunday BV (before Victor) became a leisurely breakfast out, followed by a stroll around the Huntington Pier. We browsed a little beachside craft fair and stopped to smell hand-made candles poured into coconut shells. We watched a Veteran’s Day service on the beach, with World War II veterans in attendance. (Those guys always get to me.) Then we drove up Pacific Coast Highway, enjoying the view all the way to the store.

See the difference? I sure did. I won’t even go into all the fun we had in Homegoods. Suffice it to say that for the rest of my days, I will look for feet below the big hanging rugs, because I am now aware that those hanging rug displays make a great hiding spot. We didn’t get anything for the walls, and we didn’t care.

What comes after Long Beach?

Another Sunday morning, we sat at Starbucks discussing what we should do with the sunny day. Nothing came to mind.

Vic’s car was in the shop and his rental was a convertible, so we just started driving. We gravitated towards PCH, because leisure drives should offer good views. From Huntington we drove through Seal Beach and then Long Beach. I realized that although I’ve lived here for 33 years, I haven’t ever gone any farther on PCH.

“What comes after Long Beach?” I asked.

“Torrance, I think…” He fiddled with his phone, checking the map. “Hmmm…”

For the record, San Pedro comes after Long Beach, but it doesn’t matter when there’s sun on your face and wind in your hair and your sweetheart holding your hand. While I watched the beach towns pass by, Victor kept an eye on the map, and we wound up here:

Don’t you feel relaxed just looking at this picture? I never get tired of looking at beautiful views.

That place is called Palos Verdes Cove. I never even knew it was there. We just stood on the cliff for a while, taking in the view while dolphins played in the water below. Views do something to me—something relaxing and refreshing. That was a heck of a view.

So we went from Starbucks to dolphins in 45 minutes, without planning ahead—all because Victor has a sense of adventure and the ability to follow a map. We could have defaulted to the sofa and watched reruns all day, and I would have gone home feeling guilty that I didn’t get the laundry done. Instead, I had another mini-vacation, with gorgeous views and romantic memories, and the laundry never even crossed my mind.

The Organized Life: Tips from a Reformed Slob

Posted on January 29, 2013 by midlifemeg

A funny thing is happening to me on Pinterest. I’m not a big pinner, but I have a few boards. For some reason, my Organizing board now has over 300 followers, and more follow every day. This is very surprising to me. I’ve never thought of myself as any kind of guru on organization.

Except wait—maybe I am, kind of.

I’ve come a long way in terms of organization. I used to be a real slob. I used to never ever have my act together. I used to lose my keys EVERY SINGLE DAY. My family will testify to all of the aforementioned.

Just like the best weight loss advice comes formerly fat people, l suppose the best person to give organizing advice is a reformed slob, right? So, without further ado, here are my super-basic tips for getting and staying organized.

Have less stuff. Most of us don’t need more storage, we need less stuff. So purge! Getting rid of stuff you don’t love or use makes it easier to enjoy the stuff you do. Before you buy something new, try to imagine where you’ll store it and how often you’ll use it. Do you have a place for it? And is it worth the space? Think about that potential purchase sitting on a closet shelf, with all the other crap you thought you needed. Think about selling it at a garage sale in a couple years—for a dollar. That kind of visualizing really helps me buy less stuff. The less stuff I bring home, the less I have to organize.
A place for everything, and everything in its place. That expression has been around for almost 200 years. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_A._Goodrich) You can’t put things away if you haven’t established where they go. And you can’t keep everything on the counter or table or floor. Your belongings need a real home, where they are out of the way when you’re not using them. Clear surfaces make your home much more peaceful.
Read Organizing from the Inside Out, by Julia Morgenstern. This book was life-changing for me. The gist is to organize according to your natural tendencies, not someone else’s prescribed system. Julia offers a simple method to make your surroundings and your systems fit the way you live. I still mentally refer to it whenever I set up or reorganize a space. Best organizing book ever.
Just do a little tiny bit. I am easily overwhelmed, and when I’m overwhelmed, I do nothing. So when the housework is piled up or I have a nasty organizing job, like the craft room or the garage, the trick is to not let it overwhelm me. I tell myself that I will just clean one counter. Or empty one box. Or, I will set the timer and tell myself I just have to work on it for 20 minutes. I can stop when I’m done with just that little bit…but I almost never do. Progress begets progress. When you complete one small task, you feel motivated to continue.
Make it pretty. If I buy a $3 bouquet of flowers, it will prompt me to clean my whole kitchen, because I can’t stand to put something pretty in the middle of a mess. Likewise, if I enjoy my space aesthetically, I’m more likely to honor it by sticking to my organizational systems and keeping it tidy. I found this cute dresser in my favorite antique store. I use it for all the small stuff– jewelry, socks, scarves– and it’s so pretty, I don’t want to mess it up– so I keep it neat!
Throw a party. Seriously. As a procrastinator, I find a deadline immensely helpful. I also have a healthy sense of shame* about my shoddy housekeeping tendencies. So if people are coming over on Saturday, then that paper pile-up on the dining table has to be gone, and the floors have to be cleaned- by Saturday. Otherwise, there’s no reason I can’t leave it messy for another week. Entertaining helps keep me on my toes. It doesn’t have to be a party, just a dinner guest will do—any new set of eyes around my house does the trick.

*Most shame is not healthy, of course. Your house doesn’t have to be perfect before you have someone over. And you don’t have to scrub your shower or re-organize your garage before you have a dinner guest. Use this trick only to the degree that it’s helpful.

These days, my house still gets messy, but it’s definitely functional. Everything has a place and the places make sense to me. And you know what? That’s all it means to be organized: my home works for me. There is a functional order to my belongings and I enjoy being in my home. I win.

The Midlife Adventures of Meg