I am a Neat Nick

I make my bed everyday. It’s all I can do not to make everyone’s bed everyday. Being compulsively neat is a disease. I get it from my mom, the Queen of Clean.

Being a neat nick makes life for both you and the ones who share your space difficult at times, and this is why.

The people you live with are not neat nicks--they never are--trust me. So, they cannot stand the fact that you are always tidying, even if you have completely given up on them ever cleaning anything. You begin to tidy their things, which they oddly consider to be an invasion of their space and privacy.

Life is difficult for you, because no matter how much the people with whom you share your space tidy, clean, and otherwise enable you, it is not enough.

Because it is never enough. I have never once said to myself, “The house is now clean.”

I live with two people who are not neat nicks. I have learned to just let things be messy. There are piles of paper work all over the house, and FEMA should be notified about my study. Both showers need scrubbing. I don’t like it, but I don’t want to pass on my illness to my son. Nor do I want to be divorced. So my house stays messy.

Clearly I have succeeded in my quest to raise a well-adjusted, non-neat nick child. In fact, you should see my son’s room; that is, if you can find it under the clutter.

Clutter, trust me, of which I am acutely, painfully aware.