A High Maintenance Update

I just yelled downstairs to ask Riley what I should post about today. He said "fun movies." I decided to write about high maintenance(ness? I need to reach a conclusion on the grammatical correctness of that term. Being high maintenance is what I'm trying to say).

Well as you may recall, I decided a little while ago to do such things as fold underwear. So I thought I'd tell you how that's going for me. Well I've only folded one more pair of undies since then, but I have been doing some other high maintenance activities.

And I'll tell ya, it feels good! Let's just make a list of the activities, shall we?

--separated all my clothes in my closet by category (skirts, tees, collared shirts, dresses) and put everything in color order within its section. My closet looks delicious. I just go in there to look.

--tidied the kitchen (not to the point of completion, but just a few things here and there) while chatting on the phone with Brad tonight (while Kristen was patiently waiting for us to order pizza; I'm sure she is rolling her eyes at my rudeness right now. And you know what? Number 1 reason I have avoided being a high maintenance gal all these years? Rudeness. My apologies, K Dog.)

--developed and wrote down a rotating chore schedule: Monday, vacuum; Tuesday, dishes; Wednesday, trash and recycling; Thursday, laundry

--I have cleared all items off of my bed at night, including all extra pillows, so that all that occupies my slumber cube is me, my pillow, and if I'm lucky, Dibby (for those of you who are just joining us here at the Daily Bailey, Dibbs is my cat, not my boyfriend. Although my heart certainly belongs to him. Last summer I was trying to avoid a date with this guy and my mom said, "Tell him you're in a relationship. You are, aren't you? With your cat?").

--I have thrown away items, particularly packaging--boxes, plastic wrap--that previously would have stayed around for a much longer period. My whole life I have liked to keep things new. As much as I like to use my 96 pack of Crayola crayons, I also love to look at the perfect new box in the condition in which it left the factory. I will leave stickers on a new trash can, won't remove tags from clothes until the moment before I put them on, and doing so rules out wearing new socks on a whim. I can only wear such socks following a leisurely morning while I have lots of time to prepare to remove the plastic spears that adjoin the toes, and even then the tiny, now worthless pieces of plastic will sit on my nightstand for a good month or 2 or 3 until I am good and ready to throw them away. Why? I'm a thinker, not a doer, always have been, more than likely always will be. But I have learned since my not-long-ago declared underwear-folding allowance to myself that I am perhaps more capable than I once thought of throwing away bits of useless plastic sooner rather than later.

(I used a lot of (parentheses) in that list, didn't I?) (Sorry.)

So there ya have it. My high maintenance update. From me, the lowest maintenance girl you may ever meet. It should be noted here that possessing such a title is tied with rudeness as the other #1 reason why I have never wanted to be high maintenance--I like being the girl who runs out the front door to ride roller coasters at a moment's notice, without a dollar in her pocket, makeup on her face, or cell phone in her purse with a boyfriend's phone number just a thumb-flick away. Independent, carefree, and not a burden to anyone.

One thing I have learned in the past week or so, thanks also to my newly scheduled creative time, is that I had forgotten how great my love for visual aesthetics is. As a child I would spend hours poring over a creative project, whether assigned for school or assigned by myself. I have never lost my attention to detail, and certainly not my love for the arts either. But along the way somewhere I got it in my head that I could only do one or the other. If I was going to be the girl who always goes with the flow, then I would always have to squeeze in the bare minimum effort for my own projects, when time finally allowed.

I have missed such simple things as good handwriting. Nick and Brad both have amazing, simple yet characteristic penmanship. My most obvious joy in getting my postcards from Nick (which he so faithfully sends, thank you <3) is that they come from a person so dear to me. But there is also such comfort in his block, capital letters. I take time to meditate on his return address on each piece of mail he sends. I would likely feel this way if he wrote in ugly chicken scratch, but while to him this is his natural pen stroke, to me it seems as if each letter is built with care for its recipient. And it makes my best friend feel nearer than whatever city his letter actually came from.

I had known all these years that I, too, can create, and make things look more artistic than purely functional. I don't mean to brag, but I've always been complimented on my expertise in creating bubble letters. I can make collages, witty scrapbook pages, blobs of colored pencil and crayon that meld into mosaics. Even when I am at my most patient, you may find me able to sketch something, as long as it's geometric enough and not living. I had told myself I didn't have time for this anymore.

I know this sounds ridiculous, and I will be thrilled and comforted if there is one person out there who can identify with this, but I have looked at friends' day planners for years, noting the carefully planned timing of study, social lives, doctors' appointments, meetings with professors, with envy. Color coordinated outfits, organized jewelry, carefully etched initials on folders for each class. All this time I have scoffed at what I thought was petty. Security blankets, I thought they were, for the weak, for those who needed detail to feel in control. I thought that all I needed was heart, and the rest didn't matter. Turns out I need a little bit of both.

So I am reteaching myself to be the balanced girl I was before--who had time to be detailed, artistic, spontaneous, and organized. Because time didn't feel like it was ticking so fast when I was 10, I didn't feel rushed, and I didn't notice if anyone was watching. Maybe that seems backwards that I should aim for a previous state, but why would we so uphold childhood as an age of innocence and being carefree, if it weren't true? Aren't we all, as adults, ultimately aching to be free? That is one of my favorite words of all time: FREE.