I blame a longtime dresser that occupied my bedroom growing up. I remember this dresser because one time, I accidentally left one of the top drawers open, and our first cat managed to jump inside of it. The weight of the cat forced the entire dresser to topple over, banging up against the end of my bed and scaring the crap out of me as I lay there flipping through a magazine. The cat quickly got out once he realized how much peril he was in for, but all of the items that sat on top of the dresser did not make it. Papers, toiletries, loose change spilled all over the bedroom floor. Most of it, naturally, spilled directly under the bed I had to stretch and reach beyond my abilities to retrieve. And of course the cat was completely absolved of this heinous act. Seems like they always are, aren't they?
The drawers to this dresser weren't too deep, but there were enough of them to hold all of my clothes. And this was important, seeing how I grew up without a closet. I would have had a closet, but my parent's bedroom needed a stairwell to access, and those stairs happened to cut through the space meant for the closet. The dresser was up to task as best as it could, save for hefty creatures casually jumping inside of it. A short time later, my parents purchased me a newer, more stable one. It was a lighter shade of brown wood, complete with a matching small headboard for the bed frame. Across the hall, my sister's bedroom got a duplicate set. Even though they sold the house and moved over a decade ago, my parents still have these dressers and matching headboards. These pieces have been durable, functional, and hopefully never toppled over on my parent's watch. It's a good thing they can't own cats anymore.
That dresser which now resides at my parent's apartment features two deep drawers and two shallow ones. The shallow drawers are at the top and in the middle. Growing up, I used the middle one mostly as a sock drawer. The two deeper compartments were of course stuffed to the brim with unfolded clothes. I was fairly tidy with my clothes as a kid - can't quite say the same thing about toys and magazines, however. The small dresser space I have now requires my fabrics to be neatly packed with some sense of organization, but they are most certainly not. I really just don't care about how clothes are stored - they're not on the floor, are they? Needless to say I stuffed the crap out of those deep drawers to much success, and often to much annoyance when I had to find certain garments. The top shallow drawer of this dresser started out with a purpose, I like to think. Some pens, lots of coins, maybe a deodorant stick and other small random trinkets I needed access to daily. Over time, the contents of that top drawer multiplied considerably. More pens, more papers, more stuff either I needed or for some reason didn't want sitting on top of the dresser. And thus began my very first junk drawer.
These days, the junk drawer rests inside a refurbished brown and silver painted nightstand. A supply of random medications, a comb, nail clippers, notebooks and other doodads fill the space that sits by my noggin while I sleep.
Of course, junk drawers are a pretty common thing. And thanks to our good friend Mr. Internet, we're inundated with quick hacks and solutions for de-cluttering these junk drawers. The incessant desire to categorize every minute physical detail of our lives has naturally trickled down to one of the most familiar spaces that doesn't really need it at all.
A junk drawer mimics our very own lives almost to perfection. It's just turbulent enough where we hope others simply don't have to see it themselves. We can handle it, however - they probably cannot. While these drawers may seem disorganized beyond repair, we're still fully capable finding what we need. In such a convoluted time, most of us are able to recover among such disarray. And despite such chaos in these tiny little boxes, it certainly doesn't stop one from going about their lives and seizing the day.
I'm reminded of my junk drawer during these unstable times. The discord in our own private world can often parallel what's going on the rest of the planet. It can get pretty discouraging - but what's critical is that we keep digging, keep sifting through those chaos boxes to lift out what we need. Get what you can out of it, and know for a fact you and only you can retrieve it again, if needed.
That dresser which now resides at my parent's apartment features two deep drawers and two shallow ones. The shallow drawers are at the top and in the middle. Growing up, I used the middle one mostly as a sock drawer. The two deeper compartments were of course stuffed to the brim with unfolded clothes. I was fairly tidy with my clothes as a kid - can't quite say the same thing about toys and magazines, however. The small dresser space I have now requires my fabrics to be neatly packed with some sense of organization, but they are most certainly not. I really just don't care about how clothes are stored - they're not on the floor, are they? Needless to say I stuffed the crap out of those deep drawers to much success, and often to much annoyance when I had to find certain garments. The top shallow drawer of this dresser started out with a purpose, I like to think. Some pens, lots of coins, maybe a deodorant stick and other small random trinkets I needed access to daily. Over time, the contents of that top drawer multiplied considerably. More pens, more papers, more stuff either I needed or for some reason didn't want sitting on top of the dresser. And thus began my very first junk drawer.
These days, the junk drawer rests inside a refurbished brown and silver painted nightstand. A supply of random medications, a comb, nail clippers, notebooks and other doodads fill the space that sits by my noggin while I sleep.
Of course, junk drawers are a pretty common thing. And thanks to our good friend Mr. Internet, we're inundated with quick hacks and solutions for de-cluttering these junk drawers. The incessant desire to categorize every minute physical detail of our lives has naturally trickled down to one of the most familiar spaces that doesn't really need it at all.
A junk drawer mimics our very own lives almost to perfection. It's just turbulent enough where we hope others simply don't have to see it themselves. We can handle it, however - they probably cannot. While these drawers may seem disorganized beyond repair, we're still fully capable finding what we need. In such a convoluted time, most of us are able to recover among such disarray. And despite such chaos in these tiny little boxes, it certainly doesn't stop one from going about their lives and seizing the day.
I'm reminded of my junk drawer during these unstable times. The discord in our own private world can often parallel what's going on the rest of the planet. It can get pretty discouraging - but what's critical is that we keep digging, keep sifting through those chaos boxes to lift out what we need. Get what you can out of it, and know for a fact you and only you can retrieve it again, if needed.