I am very responsible and organized. This would come as a surprise to my mother, if she was not dead. It certainly comes as a surprise to me. I am perhaps too responsible, and also it is possible I am too organized.

I decided I had better start being irresponsible occasionally. Therefore, I stayed home this morning, though I usually go to a meeting of my recovery group.

The other members have gotten used to me being there. They keep expecting me to know the answers. I do know the answers, and being me, I blurt them out. I’m tired of doing that all the time.

It was the right thing to stay home today; a young friend forgot he had a responsibility at the meeting, and texted me to see if I could cover for him, and I was delighted to say I was away. Away where, I didn’t specify.

You would think I would have used my time off wisely, by watching the sunlight streaming through my front windows and petting the cat. I did try to do that for a while, but there’s only so long my brain will put up with placid contemplation.

Somehow, I ended up going through my closet instead, and getting rid of some of the things I won’t wear, even though my closet is shockingly organized by category, and even though I cleaned it out last month.

My whole house is organized. I organize over and over. It’s what I do when I can’t think.

Periodically I notice I have too many organization systems, and have to combine them. I think my maximum was 20. I don’t dare look at how many systems I have now. They tend to spawn.

I have systems for everything, including (for instance) writing. I draft my blog posts in Notes, on my phone, as I think of ideas. I journal by hand, in fountain pen, in cursive, in a composition book. I write my novels in Word, though I have all the background information in Scrivener; I tried drafting in Scrivener but there were too many different documents and I started feeling distracted. (This is why I don’t make mind maps for planning; my branches become infinite, extend in every direction, and leave the house. There are too many connections between everything in the world, you see.)

Sometimes I forget I have a system, and then I use another system. Right now, for instance, I’m drafting this blog post online, just because that is what happens sometimes when I have the computer open. I have learned to forgive myself.

Similarly, every object has a place in my house, and I always put it back where it belongs, but in fact every object has more than one place. I spend a lot of time hunting for things in the place where they are supposed to be, only to find them in the other place they are supposed to be.

I could make a list of all the places where things are supposed to be and hang that on my door, but I already have a list on the door of what I need to take with me when I leave the house. And underneath that list is a list of what to take with me in an emergency. So if I had a list of all the places where I keep things, I don’t know where I would put it so I could see it. I suppose I could just let the territory be the map. Maps give me trouble anyway, as I said earlier.

My current lifestyle would come as a surprise to my mother, because I am by nature absolutely irresponsible, catastrophically disorganized, and fiercely defiant and oppositional. That’s who I was until I started my little life project of fulfilling my obligations, staying tidy, and occasionally being agreeable.

Because I have been doing this project so long, though I feel like being irresponsible and disorganized today, I’m not sure I know how. That’s the problem with these little life projects. It’s like learning a new language and forgetting how to speak the old one.

I don’t know how to not get things done any more.

I will think about that after I organize my desk again. It looks organized, but disorganization lurks under the surface. After that, I have to do a math lesson on my app, draw for a few minutes, write in my journal, and work on the novel. Maybe I’ll have time after I take care of four or five of the things on my task list.

Well, I did stay home today. So there’s that.