OCD Tendencies...

If there is one thing that drives me completely nuts, it's a dirty personal environment. I could never quite understand how anyone could let their house get to the point that a bulldozer was necessary to move aside all the "stuff" just to get through the door. To me, everything has a place... that way I can always find it when I go to seek it later. The one rule that accompanies that, is the fact, once used it should always go back to it's original place, or be thrown away if no longer needed. How simple is that?

My son used to play with many different friends who's houses looked like an A-bomb went off in the general vicinity of the middle of their house.... everything was on the floor, except their animals that they let crawl on the counters for food. Just a little backwards for my tastes, and I always encouraged him to think twice before asking for a drink at said houses. It back-fired a bit on me, as he had worse OCD problems than I did... and tended to wash his hands many times during the course of a day. It was so bad that he required lotion to rid himself of that "reptilian" dry hand look. I'm a clean freak, but didn't feel it necessary to wash my hands every moment; for him it was a phase that he eventually outgrew.
Since his brain was "wired" somewhat similar, but enough different from mine, I used to get upset that he was overdoing the hand-wash ritual. When your hands are rubbed so raw, and the flesh color is so devoid of your skin, it's time to rethink about how dirty you really are. But it was a situation he had to handle on his own, and my being upset over the matter never made it easier for him. At the time, he was also taking up to three showers a day... 30 minutes a shot.
Needless to say, the water company loved me! This whole adventure started when he was five, and he overcame it by himself, when he reached age ten.
To this day, though, he has the best hygiene of anyone I know.... as he cannot leave the house without the required shower, shave and fru-fru spritz. I can live with that, and my water bills are not the dreaded monthy budget buster.

What I could never understand then, was that he had no care or concern about his personal work/play space. His playroom (now my downstairs office) was cluttered with toys, with no thought that a small lego could choke a vacuum cleaner into Sears Repair Center in two seconds flat. No matter how many times I bought crates, boxes or toychests, they were remained empty while all the cars, action figures and game pieces were scattered across the floor. I finally had to rethink my attitude a little and learn how to just close the door on it all. The task of cleaning it up fell on deaf ears with him, because he would be too caught up trying to fit it all in the forts or castles he built, rather than just putting it away. Since I was working two jobs at the time, I refused to do it myself. Closing the door was a simpler solution for both of us. This way, he could continue where he left off from the day before, and I saved the vacuum cleaner from certain demise.

He is now 19, and the times have changed a bit. He no longer plays with action figures, legos, lincoln logs, or matchbox cars. He has a passion for his computer, and spends many hours in front of it.... letting go of it's radiant pull long enough to apply for college, work, eat and sleep.
He is passionate about his bedroom now, and being that it's the size of a broom closet, he constantly changes it to outfit the mood of his age. I think that's great, but have a problem in his methods. In order to weed out the old, he drops it all in a pile on the floor of my sewing room....
telling me that I can bring it to Goodwill, as he no longer has a need for any of it. The first "clean-sweep" generated the books he had been given as gifts over the years. These books are not the kiddie books, but wonderful volumes that included Peter Jennings' "The Century" and other hardback versions of historical matter. (History was always his favorite subject in school, hence, all the history books). They have since found a new home, on a new bookshelf in my office, but all the other clutter had to be swept off to donation centers. I simply told him that cleaning his room did not necessarily mean that it became my problem to deal with by dumping it off in my room.... everything has a place, even if it means donation or garbage.

So I look around my office today and see it void of childrens toys, laughter and sometimes squabbles of who's fort was the best amongst all the friends who played here.... and I can't help but feel that I miss all the cool things he had, even if it meant a stab wound to the foot by a rogue lego piece, or a crying child who couldn't find a peticular sword that went with a peticular action figure. Times do change, toys get more sophisticated and little boys do grow up.... and Moms learn to store the memories for the next generation.