If you’ve been through any of the multitude of personality trait tests out there, these words may be familiar to you – gold, square, concrete-sequential. Yep – I am your Type-A control freak. I crave order and organization; making order out of chaos calms me. To further illustrate, my second dominant color behind gold is green – the logical, detail oriented folks. I’m the person who will help you paint your house, but only if I can do the cutting in. Yes, there IS a right way to load the dishwasher, and doesn’t everyone arrange the clothing in their closet by sleeve length and color?
I’ve always been that person who keeps things neat and organized. Even in this digital age, I keep a hand-written planner; I like the act of physically checking things off a list. Yes, my shirts are hung by sleeve length and color. No, I do not believe in piles. This tendency toward the orderly served me well in my thirty years as an elementary school educator. As a classroom teacher, I believe it is important to have a neat, well-organized environment. It helps the students to stay focused and organized as well, and leads to fewer distractions and “lost” papers. The last years of my teaching career found me in heaven, aka the library. Being a media specialist gave me the opportunity to share my love of children’s literature while being in the most orderly of places. It was kismet.
In a perfect world, I would have followed up my teaching career with a new one as a professional organizer for educators. Teachers are known for being pack-rats; you never know when you might need (insert random useless item here). Instead, I’ve taken a hiatus of sorts, and have spent most of this first year of retirement digging out from under the clutter in my own home. Yes, this gold/green, concrete sequential, super-organized person has clutter – and it is time to let it go.
The Joy of Letting Go 