The Method of My Madness

I am always losing things: my keys, my wallet, my mind. Only yesterday, my I.D. holder fell off my key chain. It contained everything-my license, my school i.d., my two fake i.d.s, and my gym membership card (which I never use, but still...) and I was hysterical. For a second, I felt like I had no identity. It is sad that I have come to rely on these tiny little rectangles of plastic to define myself. More importantly, I was embarrassed. It is the third or fourth time that I have run to an RA in my building crying about how I've lost something of great importance...he basically thinks that I am a nut job. My parents reaction was as supportive as ever: "We've got to start nailing things down or at least sticking them to you with glue." Luckily, disaster was avoided-my other RA recovered it outside, where somebody had placed it on a step (thank God for nice people!). But it really got me thinking about what I consider to be organization.

I have always been a bit of a slob. Even now, in my single room, which some might construe as neat, there are bits of mess everywhere. I shove my cosmetics helter-skelter into three drawers of a plastic organizer, and my pajama pants are all thrown into white milk crates, there are purses and shoes piled in the bottom of my closet-so the appearance of neatness is really just an illusion. However, I can tell you exactly where that one sock is that I took off last week and threw across the room is...it's next to the microwave that I'm currently hiding under my bed, and I see it every time I make a soup. It's funny that the times that I have had a truly neat room, I have never been able to find the things that I am searching for.

This same phenomenon can be transferred to almost any walk of life. I mean, I write better papers when I haven't planned them out-where ideas aren't forced into straight lines and tight restrictions. I have always found the right guy when I stop looking for the perfect one. I always have that perfect day that originally started off in chaos and was scheduled to spiral into the usual horribleness that typically follows.

So riddle me this: is there a method to madness? Can disorganization equal organization?

Maybe we all just try to plan stuff out too much. Maybe my disorganization really is my form of neatness. I am always thrown off by perfect schedules and perfect rooms-I think that planning things too much ruins the spontaneity. But, I guess to a certain point, I am organized. Maybe I don't write everything down, and color coordinate my closet or know exactly what my life plan is, but I know when I have to be somewhere, I know where all my clothes are-and I'm not really freaked by the fact that I have no idea what I want to do with my life.

We are all so preoccupied by finding our paths in life, that we forget that we are living one. We forget that everything doesn't have to be written down. That life cannot simply be defined by certain guidelines-we are allowed to make ourselves and we do not have to stick to the social norms. There is a method to all of our madness, you just have to find it.