It frustrates me when I can’t understand or explain what I’m feeling. I retreat into myself only to find that it’s uncomfortable in there, so I come back out but only enough to be in a sort of limbo. I’m taking up as little room as possible both in the world and in my own head space. Peppered amongst my thoughts of, “what is this feeling,” are “where have you been?” texts and I still have no good answer for either question.
Today, I got to work and I started to clean. I could hear my Outlook pinging, alerting me to the arrival of even more problems I’d have to solve for others, but I had a Clorox wipe and a job to do. I discovered a coffee stain on one of the legs of my white, Ikea desk. I have no idea how it got there, or when, but I cleaned it.
The base of the standing lamp near my desk was dusty. I dusted it.
I cleaned out the bottom drawer of my smallest filing cabinet. It’s my “done” drawer. It’s my “keep these papers just in case” drawer and my “reference” drawer. I never go back to the papers in there, but I keep filing papers away thinking, “I might need this one day.” It took me 20 minutes to shred the papers I decided to get rid of. 20 minutes of thinking about how I really hoped I’d never need these papers again.
I cleaned because for almost an hour this morning, I felt in control of something. Because for a while, I had an answer for everything I encountered, whether it was a dust bunny or a file out of place. I cleaned because a coffee stain on my desk leg is really kind of embarrassing. (Seriously, when did that get there?)
As far as coping methods go, this is not a bad one. I may not be able to count on a thing as fickle as my feelings, but at least when that happens, all the chores will be done.