Happiness Challenge Day 17

Who decided cleaning out my closet belongs on a happiness challenge? Do I look like Martha freaking Stewart to anyone here? At no point has cleaning anything brought me any joy what so ever. I am not a Pinterest mom. Minimalizing, decluttering, and the Japanese concept of only keeping what you need, want, and use – that ain’t me, babe. I have never cleaned anything out and felt anything that resembled happiness. I think whoever wrote this challenge really needs to get their priorities checked out. This is nonsense.

I think there’s only been like three things that legitimately make me happy. I’ve tried the yoga. I fell down and pulled a muscle in my ass. I’ve tried the exercising. I dropped the weight on my foot and broke my toe. I’ve tried the meditation. I kept falling asleep and was late for work. None of them them have made me a happier individual. In fact, this has been the worst thirty day challenge so far. I mean seriously. Who puts cleaning on a challenge that is supposed to help you to be happy? No. Just no. Things like going outside, I can dig that. Making art? Totally. Spending time with family? That depends on which members of whose family, for how long, and how much wine I’ve had. But at no point have I ever looked at my closet and thought, “I want to clean that. That’ll make me feel good. That will make me happy. That’ll make things better.” This has never, not ever, not never ever has this ever happened in my forty one years of life. If ever a time does come when I tell you on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, “I’m so happy that I get to clean out my closet today,” this is my sign for my ex has kidnapped me and I need help. Under no delusions do I have that cleaning out my closet would bring me anything but fear and loathing in Joplin, Missouri.

It’s not like I’ve got a whole hell of a lot to clean out anyway. We are getting ready to move. So we cleaned out the top of the closet and put all the books in a plastic bin. The top of my closet is clean and clear.

There’s nothing up there but spiders. Lots of spiders. And that brings me to why cleaning out my closet does not give me happiness. It does not have a light on it. The whole thing is not exposed to the light in my bedroom. Therefore, there are parts of my closet that are dark and spidery. And the parts aren’t actually spidery are spider webby. This does not invoke happiness for me. This invokes burn my house down now. The send the ashed to the ocean. The send the ocean to the sun. Then send the sun into a black hole.

I hate spiders. And we don’t just have regular little house spiders around here. We have things that like to kill you also known as brown recluse spiders. We have brown recluse spiders in my house. Let me repeat that for those of you in the back who didn’t hear it. Put your judgy earphones on so you can get this. We have brown recluse spiders in my house. And yeah, spiders with an S. That’s OK. I see you staring in CPS. It’s okay. I get it. I really do. I’m not a fan either. And let me tell you, when I see one, it is a swift, harsh death usually by whatever the hell I have on hand. I have been known to throw things across the floor that were never meant to be thrown. I will typically miss and still need the bug spray and the vacuum. I will scream with a primal rage and I will start crying. And once the eight-legged, arachnid offender is destroyed, I will most likely throw up.

I cannot stand spiders. I’m not even a fan of the little, harmless ones in the corners. I don’t even care that they’re harmless; I don’t like them. Spiders are bad. And I know there’s someone reading this saying, “But spiders eat bad bugs in your house Spiders are great for your home and the environment.” The level of me not caring about the bad bugs in my house can only be matched by my hatred of spiders in my house.

We have a whole procedure that we have to go through when we do pull clothes out of the closet just to ensure there are no spiders on them. There’s a shaking out process. There’s banging out shoes. There’s inspecting every little inch to make sure that I don’t wind up with another hole in my body that God didn’t put there. That’s right, ladies and gentlemen, I have a chunk of my leg missing because of a brown recluse spider. Not from my house now but from back a couple years ago when I was pregnant with my first child. I was staying at a friend’s house and she told me she had spiders and she was like, “Oh, it’s OK. They never hurt anybody.” I woke up the next morning and there was a spider in my pajama pants and a bite mark on my leg. A week later I was missing part of my damn leg. There were red stripes going up my belly. My seven month pregnant belly. I was not a happy camper. Let’s just say spiders have done nothing to endear themselves to me at this point.

So, cleaning out my closet on that level brings me nothing that resembles happiness now. Plus, it’s also a sad, cold reminder that I am fashion challenged. I’m looking at my closet right now and there is a decided lack of something called color. Let me see if I can help you understand this. I have a brown dress I wore one time to my husband’s aunt’s funeral. Three plain black shirts. Three black shirts about writing. Three brown sweaters. A purple skirt. Three black skirts. Two purple shirts. Gray pants. Three black pants. My corgi leggings. And the ugliest Christmas sweater on the planet – complete with a Tyrannosaurus Rex shooting lasers and lightning bolts while wearing a Santa hat and beard.

I do not have a lot in the way of style. I’ve never been a fashion-forward individual. When everyone started wearing boxer shorts and it was cool to have them show, I thought you were supposed to just wear the boxer shorts. I went to school essentially wearing pajamas. I walked around school all day wearing Mickey Mouse boxer shorts as pants pants. I waited on the bus stop, rode the bus – both going to school and going home. No one said anything to me. Do you know why? I really feel that is the point everyone realized I needed remedial fashion classes. They legitimately felt bad for me. I was so clueless that I had no idea that boxer shorts were not supposed to be worn as regualr clothing. There are three year olds who have more fashion sense than that. So everyone just let me go through the day thinking I was okay. Do you know what that does to someone? When you out how fashion challenged you are, it turns you into someone who just wears jeans everyday and stops trying.

I try to do stuff different with my wardrobe. I try to wear things that are little bit different. But in the end t-shirts are twenty dollars. Pants are twenty dollars. Shoes are twenty dollars. And I don’t have any dollars laying around. We’ve been living paycheck to thirteen days before the next paycheck for about three years now.

I have embraced this thing called Disney bounding. That’s where you dress in the style of a Disney character without actually dressing like a character. So, you’re not wearing a costume; you’re wearing regular clothes. But, if someone looks at you they can sit there and say, “This looks familiar. What is that?” If you wear a blue shirt, yellow pants, an apple purse or an apple necklace that would be Snow White. If you’re wearing white with purple and lime green accents, you got Buzz Lightyear. That’s how this works. I have been trying to add to my wardrobe. I hope that for my birthday and Christmas I get things that I can incorporate into my wardrobe.

On the bottom side of my closet is my Christmas ornaments and decorations. There is the green tub filled with ornaments, lights, garland. There’s a wooden box that has my hannd made, blown glass Italian ornaments that my mom got me when I first moved out of the house. I really like those ornaments. I cant wait to put them up again this year. I’m proud of myself. I’ve had them for sixteen years and have only had one break. That shouls be considered a record for me. I need a gold star. And a corgi. And a latte.

The only other box it’s in there is the box that contains the quilts that my mom made from my grandparents clothes. The unfinished quilts. Those are in there until I can figure out what to do with them. I’ve had them sitting there until we move to our new house. Then, I can display them properly.

There’s not a whole lot in there for me to clean out. It’s not disorganized. It’s not a mess. It could stand for me to take a vacuum to the corners of the thing. There’s not a whole lot going on in my closet. No skeletons. I don’t even keep my Halloween decorations in my closet. I keep those in the garage. I can’t wait to see the look on somebody’s face when we start moving. I’ll have them open up the garage and watch as they find the body bags that I make and the ghosts out of packing tape. I think that’s going to make moving even better. I would love to see someone’s reaction to discovering those.

So, there really isn’t a whole lot for me to have to do. I can’t fix the light. I guess I could vacuum it out in the corners to get rid of some of the arachnid invaders. But I still stand by what I said: cleaning that closet out is not going to make me happy.

I get that there are people out there who find that decluttering does make them happy. That’s awesome for them. If you find joy in decluttering and cleaning and all that stuff, you are more than welcome to step foot in my house and and make your heart light as a feather. Come and clean to your heart’s content because I need all the help that I can get around here. If you want to get your rocks off and cleaning is how you do it, come on by The Baldwin Homestead because we need some help around here. I’ve thought of inviting people over just to force myself to clean. Then I thought about hosting meetings for people with OCD and hoping for the best. But that all involves people and socializing. It’s not worth it.

Cleaning out my closet is not going to be where my happiness starts. I may need tk rethink this happiness challenge deal. Maybe I’m just miserable. I have been fighting my depression again. I thought challenge would help. It’s been quite the opposite. Especially by suggesting cleaning. Maybe Mercury is in retrograde and I can’t find happiness anywhere. Hey, if everyone on Facebook can blame Mercury in retrograde for all the bad things in their lives, so can I.

I’ve been watching Corgi videos and those bring me excessive amounts of joy. This means I’m not totally, hopelessly lost. I can find happiness. Just not in cleaning.

So, where I may not be cleaning out my closet today, I think I will pull out my mom’s quilts and I will find a way to hang them up here. I’ll find a way to display them in a suitable place amd manner for what they. A memorial. People should see the hard work my mom put into them. And I will pull out the vacuum and get rid of the spider hotels. I will get that vacuum from top to bottom and the creepy places that the light does not shine in to reduce the chance having to go to the hospital. So even though it brings me no joy no happiness to my dark little cluttered soul I will declutter my closet.

Today, I will clean out my closet.