Clutter

“Ow,” she says as she began to sit up straight. She looks around at all the soggy, wadded up tissues decorating her night stand and parts of the carpet below. Her head is spinning from the night before. At first glance you’d think she has Covid. That’s not the case here though. This was a rare, yet familiar case for this middle aged, black woman from South Georgia. Let’s start from the beginning.

It was an average day, or what Saundra would consider average. Eating a small breakfast, working out, bathing, watching Netflix, then eating again before her cleaning sessions begin. She’s always had this nagging itch to clean constantly, from the time she was a little girl. She never like a mess although she could cause one in record time. Suddenly a wave of discomfort came over her and she looked behind the sofa, trash and other things left by her kids made her eyes roll as she bent down to tidy things up. She begin to wonder how much clutter was hiding behind other furniture in the house. Just like that she sprung into action, cleaning behind everything she could think of. Eventually a light bulb came on as she though to herself, “I haven’t cleaned the closets out in a long time.” She went to the kitchen , grabbed some trash bags and went to work.

Her toddlers’ room was first. She opened the closet where large barely used toys crowded the inside. She organized them and put smaller toys in baskets. The litter of broken toys that cluttered the bottom of the closet were put in one of her trash bags. She moved on to her sons bedroom finding that he had already tidied up. “Just like mama taught him,” she said as she smiled and thought about how blessed she was to be a stay at home mom, able to do things like this in the middle of the day.

Saundra made it to her closet, being that it was the worst , she saved it for last. She was always putting herself and her things last. As she opened the closet and observed the messiness. Nothing was dirty in her house, just messy. She begin to organize the shoes, when she was done she moved on to her underclothes drawers. They were inside her closet because she had no room for anything inside of her dresser. She organized those by type. Panties at the top, bras in the middle and socks in the bottom. You’d think it would be the other way around but most days she didn’t wear a bra so there’s that. She looked at all the clothes on hangers and straightened them also. Sweaters in the back, then dresses, then pants, then shirts. She removed the unwanted clothes and put them in the giveaway bag. She made it to the top of the closet where, nick knacks, irons, cords, personal business and boxes of memories sat. She paused.

Boxes of memories. Boxes of memories. Immediately she was sidetracked. She pulled down the boxes of memories and laid them on her bed. Flipping back the top, she started going through all the pictures, obituaries and keepsakes. She was smiling from ear to ear as memories of her younger years and childhood came rushing back.

She was all smiles until one picture sent her back in time. To a place where hurt , disgust, shame and guilt made up her scared 6 year old body. Tears came on cue. Darkness surrounded her. Sweat begin to form on her back. “Oh no, not again,” she thought. “Why didn’t I do this first?”