Disorganized Person

For as long as I can remember, I have been a disorganized person. I could end up misplacing this paper the day I have to turn it. I will actually end up printing off three copies of this essay just to make sure I have an extra or two in case I set this on a table somewhere and forget I set it there. I identify with Cecily in the play, The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde, when she says, “If I didn’t write it down, I should probably forget all about them.” I do not think I have ever misplaced an item quite as important as an essay before, but I have misplaced many other objects in my life. I have lost so many pencils that I cannot even imagine counting them all. I have misplaced socks that I have to wear for the volleyball game later

that day. I have forgotten where I hid Christmas presents for family members. If you look at me, you might not think I look that disorganized, but that is just because I do not like to be seen as a “messy slob.” I do not like being disorganized. If I could change it I would. It is not that I do not care about other people think of me. It is just that I care more about other things in my life more.
When I was in preschool, I had to get glasses to correct my astigmatism. I remember coming home that day and walking into my bedroom and seeing a hill in the middle of my bedroom floor. At the time I did not ask myself, “Why is there a hill in the floor of my room?” All I could do was think about how I was going to get around the hill in the floor if my room. I had toys covering every square inch of my floor. The only place I could even see the floor in my room was the patch of carpet covering the hill. I did not think about clearing a path towards my bookshelf by taking the thirty seconds it would have taken to pick up the toys. Why would I pick them up? I might want to play with them later. Instead, I tried to jump over the hill and my toys to get to my bookshelf, thinking I could get all the way there with my short four-year-old legs. I did not come close to landing anywhere near my bookshelf. I landed on top of my Buzz Lightyear toy and fell to the ground. My glasses fell off my face and I was able to see that there was no hill in the floor of my room. That was just how my eyes perceived the floor as they tried to adjust to my new glasses. I soon got used to my glasses and seeing the world around me in a new way. My glasses showed me a lot of things that were already around me. I could see each individual leaf on a tree more than seven feet in front of me. More importantly, they helped me see how much of a slob I am.
I have always been a disorganized person. A question I often ask myself is “What would I be like if I were not as messy as I am now?” I pride myself on having time management skills when it comes to school and completing other tasks I must do because they are expected of me. I attribute a lot of that skill to the fact that I know what is more important. I put doing my homework over hanging out with friends, going to a sporting event I am not playing in, and over other things of the same sort. I will not clean my room when I have homework in five different classes that night. I do not care if it “looks pretty.” I care if my grade drops to a B average. What would I be giving up in my life to have a spotless room or a perfectly clean locker? In the morning I have twelve minutes at school to get my books for my morning classes, look back over my homework, and talk to teachers or other students if I need to. I try to spend as short of an amount of time at my locker as I can. I put my afternoon classes’ books and binders in the bottom part of my locker and grab my morning classes’ supplies from the top. I have plenty of time to get any homework I did not do done. I am not that person that everyone knows who says, “Oh, well I forgot it at school and didn’t have time for it.”, but then is talking to his or her friends by their locker or color coding their locker in the morning when they could be getting things done. I have never left a binder with all of my important work at my house. Yet I will still be chosen last by some for a group project because they think I will lose an important paper or mess up the design of the project. Sure I have messy handwriting, but it is not that bad. So what would happen if I became more organized? Would I be treated better?

I live in a world where people will judge you for not acting the same way that they do. No matter what year it is or if you are real or a fictional character, other people will always judge you.In the book Pygmalion, written by George Bernard Shaw, an average bystander in the first act on page four states, “It's all right: he's a gentleman: look at his boots.” This man was deemed a gentleman just based off of the type of shoes he wore, not by how he acted or treated others. I am constantly judged as being less than what society deems I should be because I do not fit the ideal description of the oldest child. The description of a perfect eldest child is a leader, a driver, and a list maker. They are organized, logical, scholarly, and perfectionists (Leman 95). Sure, I fit the description of the oldest child in some aspects: I am logical, scholarly, a list-maker, and a driver. There are all key aspects most firstborn children exhibit. I seem like a firstborn to others if they do not know me that well, but as soon as you step into my room or see my locker, you know I lack two other major characteristics of the oldest child. I am not organized and I would never call myself a perfectionist when it comes to how things look (Leman 95). Granted, I fit the role of perfectionist when it comes to some things, like playing music and having correct answers on assignments, but my sheet music is never organized and my answers are not always obviously placed on homework. My little sister, on the other hand, has a folder for everything and color coded all of her nail polish for fun. She has her closet sorted by seasons, style, and color. In my closet, I consider it lucky if the shirt I am looking for is located in the “shirt compartment.” The shirt I am currently wearing while typing this was in with my athletic shorts drawer this morning. I do not think my room would seem quite as bad if her room did not look so much better than mine. Where I have a desk completely covered with papers and binders and books, she has a completely bare desk save a mason jar with different writing utensils. Where I have a bookshelf with so many books it sags in the middle, she has a dresser filled with the half of her clothes that she does not have room for in her closet. My closet is filled to the brim with clothes - most of which I never wear. If I were neater, people just looking at me would probably say I look collected and respectable, but if you were comparing me to my sister, I would still seem like the messy one.
At times I feel like Kate in the play The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare.

When the character of Kate is first introduced, Hortensio compares her to a devil and says that no matter how much money she may have, no one would ever want to marry her. She is treated poorly because she does not fit the standards set by others (Shrew). I identify with her because I also feel judged by others. I feel like no matter how smart, helpful, and nice I am, I will always be less because I do not fit the mold set by others. My sister, on the other hand, fits the mold at first glance. Her room is almost always ready for company to come over and walk into. She is a social butterfly who tries to look like a magazine ad in every aspect. My room always has and always will reflect me as a person. I have artwork covering the walls and music and playbills on my bulletin board. Even if I were organized, they would still be in there. My room looks like a human lives in it and my sister’s looks like she is waiting for a camera crew to walk in and start filming. If my room were cleaner than hers, people would still choose hers over mine because her room is generic enough that other people would feel cozy enough that they would be willing to spend time in it, but it is cute enough that you feel like the atmosphere is one of a trendy person’s room. My room feels too much like me even when it is clean. “Why do you have so many painting on your wall? Can’t you get rid of at least a few of these books? Why don’t you get new bedding? This one seems outdated.” I do not care that it is not what that person would put in their room. It is my room and I do not care what others think looks best. I try to make things in life easier for me so that I can do more things in my day. In my current messy state, my room is set up so that my life can be quicker and easier for me. I keep the shirt I know I need to wear in two days sitting on my desk chair so I can easily grab it and go. I have my

remote for my TV sitting on the floor next to my bed so I can spend less time looking for it and more time watching a video I need to watch for a class. I keep my charger for my phone spread out on my floor so it is easily accessible for when my phone all of a sudden drops down to two percent. This seems to be the best system in the moment, but the less time I spend getting things done at the exact time I need it, the more time I spend during the one day my mother decides my room is too messy and makes me clean it. Whenever I do clean my room, it leaves me in a constant state of confusion because nothing is where it should be. I will spend six minutes searching for a pair of shoes that would normally be sitting at the foot of my bed only to realize they are hanging in the shoe organizer on the back of my door. I knew where everything I needed was and everything was in the place I thought it should be, but my room is still called “disorganized.” Is it really disorganized, or do I have a different organization system that everyone else?
I wish people understood that I do not like being disorganized. I wish people did not judge me as a whole based off of just that trait. I wish people understood that I do care, I just care about other things more. I would lose time out of my life if I were more organized, and I am not ready to start giving up things I love to do something I hate. I hate cleaning. I am bad at cleaning. I am easily distracted by cleaning because I find something I have not seen in forever and see if it still works or if it as fun as I remember. I also do not like cleaning things because when cleaning I feel obligated to throw things away but am struck with a feeling of, “What if I still need this?” I can not get rid of some of my favorite things from childhood. Some of these objects still make sense in my life, but others could easily be seen a space taking junk. I am a babysitter, so it makes sense for me to have kept my favor books from when I was little because I can bring them and teach the four-year-old about colors and shapes with the help of a little white rabbit. I also still have a few of my favorite stuffed animals from when I was little. I still have Max the dog, Kat the cat, and Cracker Belle, a duck. I cannot bring myself to get rid of them, and so I lose a spot for dressy shirts that can be folded in my closet to the box of my childhood.
I wish I were not as disorganized. I with I was not judged as a whole just because I do not fit the mold that society has made for the oldest child. I am not an organized neat freak, who spends more time sorting my socks than I do on homework and extracurriculars. If I did become more organized, I feel like I would be viewed better than what I currently am, but in the end, I feel like I would not be me if I were not this unorganized mess of a person. I cannot imagine being anything less. I think I like being me, even if I am a human disaster.