Order:
~ the disposition of things following one after another, as in space or time; succession or sequence: The names were listed in alphabetical order.
~ a condition in which each thing is properly disposed with reference to other things and to its purpose; methodical or harmonious arrangement: You must try to give order to your life.
It's cotton growing season here in the Tennessee Valley, and I pass this field every day on my way to work. I've watched it go from a field left over from last year's crop, to a freshly plowed patch of earth to wee seedlings poking up toward the sun and now to these well-established plants. And there are rows and rows and rows of them -- in this field and the one across the road and along roads all across the southern United States.
This field makes me happy, because I like order. I like things to be in nice, neat rows. Not OCD crazy-as-a-loon order, but within-the-range-of-normal-mental-health order. I know where things are in my apartment (most of the time) because everything has a place (or the vicinity of a place). The Playfriends kid me about my car because it's all clean and neat (hey, you should have seen it when I had kids) and it's like flying in an airplane used to be (there's a small pillow and blanket in the backseat and I think I walked off a Continental flight with the blanket because they had turned me into an icicle).
Lately, though, my sense of order has begun to wane. I still keep my day planner on my desk and my life is in that book. My cabinets are all arranged with dishes one place, glasses another and the silverware is in an organizer with knives, forks and spoons all separate and lined up like good little soldiers.
But the front closet I've been saying I needed to clean out for the last six months is still in disarray. I finally cleaned out under the guest bathroom sink mainly because I was sure I had some Benadryl cream under there that would soothe a rash on my neck (and yes indeed, I did).
I used to make my bed every single day. Now, I pull up the sheets and blanket and prop the pillows against the headboard. I can't make myself leave it all messy, but I don't do the comforter/shams/extra pillows thing every day.
I suppose I've hit a balance. I've stopped (for the most part) expecting perfection, though you'd never know it from my obsession over my recent photo shoot. More about that in another blog.
I guess now my life has become a little more like this part of the field. There's still order but you can see some gaps and a few weeds here and there. Not perfect, but good enough.
And sometimes "good enough" is well... good enough.
How about you? Are all your rows in order? Or do you have some gaps and weeds? Or do you even have rows?
And now I need to stop messing with this blog post and quit trying to make the spacing perfect.
