This blog is about my Day Zero list. Day Zero challenges you to complete 101 things in 1001 days.
I found out about this site on New Year's Eve, so to me it smacked of resolutions. You know the standards: lose weight, get more organized, get out of debt, save for X. I know the ones on my list year after year (lose weight, for starters). I couldn't think of 101 things I felt I had to accomplish that were that size, and moreover I felt that if I could come up with the list, I would never be able to accomplish it in only 1001 days. Yes, that looks like a lot, but it's not even three years. Where would I find time to read the Torah, New Testament, Book of Mormon, and Koran? How could I take a review of Geometry and Organic Chemistry? How could I plan my dream trip to Peru and Jordan? How could I possibly learn to speak Russian and Arabic? (OK, we're getting into pipe dreams here. Why not resolve to negotiate world peace?)
But a friend suggested I start with 20 things, if I couldn't come up with 101. And suggested I start with, as a sample, "Clean out the vegetable drawer in the fridge." And suddenly I realized that one of these things could be as easy as finally assembling the bookshelves I bought three months ago, or learning to knit on double-pointed needles, or getting some hooks to put by the door so I have a place to hang my coat.
These sound like trivialities, but how often do we get hung up on trivialities? I'm one of those people who never learned how to be neat, and it's a constant source of irritation. Whatever isn't occupying my attention at the moment is free to sit wherever it happens to be, until I have a path to the door and stuff scattered everywhere else. This scattered stuff never grows to be unconquerable piles of things, such as you see in the worst hoarders, where people can't even open rooms of their house anymore. But I've sometimes wondered how wide the gap between me and those people are. And it has not escaped my attention, that when the guys on COPS go into a house to answer a call, the place looks like my place could if I didn't force myself to neaten up once in a while. I don't like the idea that I live even a little like that.
Being messy and disorganized saps the attention and the time. I do spend time hunting for things and I have bought things I already own because I've forgotten I have them. Or I have to re-purchase things because I can't find things I know I own, like the darning needles I bought tonight. And then there was the time I found an earring (costume, but loved) in the bag of recyclables as I was on my way to the bins to get rid of them.
Today I vaccuumed the corridor. Just the corridor, not the apartment. I did it because I needed to do it before I placed the bookshelf I had assembled. And it felt good. Not draining because housework is mindless. It felt good to take care of myself in that way. And it looked nice when I was done. And I felt bad that I had bought such a cheap vaccuum that it couldn't do the edge (no attachments). Vaccuuming isn't a chore; it's an act of self-care, like washing my hair or brushing my teeth. I'm not particularly enamored of toothbrushing, but I do it twice a day because I like the way clean teeth feel, and I hate the way dirty teeth feel. I wash my hair so it's soft and pretty, and so my forehead won't break out. And I will vaccuum regularly now because I suddenly understand that it's one of the things that makes me feel better when it's done. And not the relief that it's done and won't need doing for a week, but done because it makes my apartment and my life a little prettier.
Tomorrow I will post about my list of things, at least the starter. Most of it will seem mundane compared to the samples on the Day Zero site. But they are important to me. And along the way in accomplishing them, maybe I will come to understand why I am 42 and don't clean house regularly. I know my behavior isn't optimal. Maybe I will learn why, and how to become what I think I should be.
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