CHAOS: Any mixed mass, without due form or order; as a chaos of materials. Confusion; disorder; a state in which the parts are undistinguished.
HARMONY: The just adaptation of parts to each other, in any system or composition of things, intended to form a connected whole; as the harmony of the universe. Concord or agreement in views, sentiments or manners, interest, etc., good correspondence; peace and friendship. The citizens live in harmony.
PEACE: In a general sense, a state of quiet or tranquility; freedom from disturbance or agitation; applicable to society, to individuals, or to the temper of the mind.
Though I’ve been battling a horrible headache all weekend long, my children and I have been busily organizing the house. We have sorted and boxed up my oldest son’s belongings that he left in his room. He thought he’d go through it later. He thought he’d have me ship some stuff to him. But, things change. So, finally, today we just sorted, boxed, labeled, and placed it in the attic for him to decide later what is to become of his childhood and college treasures.
Yesterday a friend gave the boys her youngest son’s two twin beds, so they are also going through their own things. They have hung on to toys that they haven’t played with in years. Things have just lingered and loitered though no longer welcome in their teenage world. The new beds are the perfect excuse to sort and clean out the long forgotten souvenirs from their childhood.
I’m loving it.
I have a hard time with the chaos of messy rooms and disorganized belongings. I grew up in a home that was in a constant state of disorder. My mom hated order. She craved chaos and drama, physical and emotional.
I had been an A student, but eventually I could no longer bear up under the oppression of my home life and I acquiesced to her ways. I couldn’t spend two to three hours searching the filth for a pair of scissors for a project and then do my best on the project itself, investing hours on the actual work of it. I couldn’t pay attention in class, sitting on bones that throbbed from the beating of the day before. Her chaos won over the order and stability I craved, and I quit trying in school.
One time she begrudgingly cleaned and sorted through the mess. She couldn’t bear to part with anything though, so she placed her newspaper collection in paper bags and put them under the kitchen sink. Of course, she never had the leak under the sink fixed either, so, after the mice finished using the newspapers for nesting material, the bags and papers became a gooey, wet mess to be scraped up.
I remember when my parents were still together my dad would often remark, “B, even pigs shit in one corner.”
My husband was a junk collector. Though he demanded only the best for himself, he saved every piece of trash as something that he thought the kids and I could use for home schooling or building projects for the animals. He cluttered every inch of the house and yard with stuff that no one else wanted. He would volunteer to take garbage off job sites to bring home and dump it around our house. When he left it took us months to haul away or burn the garbage he abandoned here.
My husband complained bitterly, and got my second son to join him, telling others that I was “anal” and that I forbid them to even sit on the furniture. That wasn’t true. I had merely asked that they not sit on it in their dirty work clothes. I asked that everyone take off their muddy boots at the door, instead of tracking mud across the worn out, used, white carpet that won’t stand up to many more shampoos. Our house was so messy, so filthy, that it took days to prepare it for company. God forbid anyone stop by unannounced!
It wore me out to follow around behind R, cleaning up and picking up after him. He was too much work for just one woman. He truly needed a team of slaves. He made remarks that let us know that is what he thought the kids and I were for.
When he replaced my furniture I’d sold to cover the bills when he up and quit yet another job, he replaced it with large, heavy, dark pieces that overwhelmed our tiny cabin. It felt cluttered and chaotic, dark and oppressive.
I admit that I like things organized. I like open spaces. I like the warmth and brightness of the sun. I crave peace and tranquility.
I can’t relax in the chaos of a mess. I can’t still my rapid heart rate and quiet my racing mind in the midst of filth. When there is no order to my surroundings, my spirit cannot find order within itself. I need those physical boundaries to help me feel secure in my personal boundaries.
My mother and husband created chaos, disorder, and they blurred the lines of personhood and individuality so that I became indistinguishable from them. I was part of them. I was their feet, their ass, but I was not a unique individual deserving of my own feelings and thoughts. I, ANFL, was lost in their swirl of chaos.
I am now spending inordinate amounts of time trying to adapt my surroundings to each other, to create one connected, peaceful whole. I do this in order to foster a sense of tranquility in my home. I pray so hard every day that my husband will stop pursuing me through the courts and stop asking for more than what he deserves, not because I hate him but because I desperately need quiet and to be free from his agitation.
I hate chaos. And, for me, as I box and sort and label and stack and throw away, I move one step closer to the tranquility that has eluded me thus far.
Bethany said:
WOW! I am amazed at how your stories are always so similar to mine. I know I say this all the time but it still shocks me every time that they are SO similar. It took me 3 days to clean my house after P&P (Plague and Pestilence my new nickname for my abuser 🙂 ) and I separated. All the glass jars and boxes that I was not aloud to throw away. He also had a collection of all of the boxes that his precious video games and Transformer toys came in. He didn’t keep them in the boxes but he wouldn’t let me throw them away either, saying “I need them.” He would even put the video game boxes ON DISPLAY all over the livingroom!! When a friend of his came and asked for all of P&P’s stuff I packed all of his boxes and sent them to him! He was mad that I had sent him trash and demanded that I take them back. I said that “My house is not a storage facility for his crap! I will take it back and then throw it in the trash!” It didn’t bother him that it be thrown away… so now I know that he did it just to cause chaos in my life!! It feels so good to get all of that useless chaos out of the way. I am happy for you big sis 🙂
anewfreelife said:
Oh my gosh! SOOOO similar! R would bring home old glass bottles and put them in the window sills. He had crap everywhere! And, he needed it all. I have been nervous about what he might do via the courts once he gets the stuff that he spent at least $10,000 to get. I have most of it loaded into the back of the 30 year old pick up that he demanded, and it looks like someone is making a dump run! I KNOW that he’ll be mad that I’m sending him garbage, but it is all of his stuff. I am confident it was all just power and control to make my life miserable in court; he doesn’t want that stuff. Otherwise, he’d have picked it up when I requested he pick it up (through court documentation) last summer. I have been storing his garbage for a year and a half. Of course, I’m under a statutory restraining order, so I can’t dispose of it. It has to just sit in my yard for me to look at 24/7.
Little Sister, I am happy for you that J’s chaos is in the trash! : )
fitforservice said:
My husband thinks we need to save everything… a different kind of hoarder. I have to purge the house, or “clean” when he’s at work or he’ll give me his 100 reasons why we might need the old box from his first cell phone in 2038. LOL
I’m glad you are going through this process. It always gets more chaotic before it gets peaceful. The end result will be worth it! 🙂
anewfreelife said:
Darkest before the dawn, eh? : ) It’s a little therapeutic to burn the junk he saved! Gives me a little tickle!
Barbara Roberts said:
Amen! I am like you, sister, I need a relatively tidy and clean environment to help my spirit be at peace and sing with joy.
And you are not the first victim I know whose abuser was a junk collector. I know one lady whose abuser collected so much junk that he rented out extra barns and sheds to store it all in – while the family themselves lived in a rented house that should have been condemned for demolition, it was so substandard. He filled shed after shed with machines and equipment that were broken, obsolescent, and often filthy to boot.
This man seemed like he had that version of OCD which compulsively collects junk and can never thrown anything away. And hygiene… I won’t even try to tell you about his personal hygiene (lack thereof).
Keep it up. Each little square meter of pleasant space you create is a win over the enemy who tried to unravel you.
anewfreelife said:
Geez, the commonalities of these guys!
I like that…..Each little square meter of pleasant space you create is a win over the enemy who tried to unravel you. I like that a lot!!!
anewfreelife said:
I was still mulling over your comment, Barb, after I walked away from the computer. Our house is also extremely substandard. The one bedroom is dropping down into the room below it. The dry rot is eating up the side of the entire house. It has eaten holes through the kitchen and bathroom floors. Yet, yet, my husband is walking out of the marriage with a myriad of expensive, name brand power tools and quite a nice collection of commercial grade weight equipment.
My 16 year old commented last night that this is the first real bed he’s had in his entire life. Sadly, he’s right. I had found a nice bedroom set with decent beds at a thrift store for $200 quite a few years ago. However, he got angry that I would even ask to spend that kind of money on the kids. Instead, he emphatically stated, he would make them beds. He found some old guy who took worn out mattresses and stuck new stuffing in one side and he used old 2 x 4s and made the boys beds. He ended up spending $200 anyway on hardware and cheap stuffing. They were horrible. The springs poked through and tore their clothes and bruised their skin. But, oh, he was so proud of what he’d done and how he’d saved money (though he, in fact, hadn’t). He just made the boys’ room look like another old wood junk pile!
My husband also had horrible hygiene and manners and thought anyone who even mentioned it as being an issue was wrong for judging him. He accused them of being elitist.
Lee said:
Oh yes, I’ve done the junk clean-out. ‘Nuff said!
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