A room of one's own.

I've never lived a tidy life.

Obsessive, yes. Compulsive, always.

But tidy? No, not really.

Since I can remember my life has been a battle with piles of laundry on the floor, with dresser drawers spilling over, threatening to topple the entire bureau, with pairs of shoes shoved under the bed next to spools of thread, old photographs, and unfinished letters.

I've tried to curb this somewhat disgusting habit, taking pains to line up the perfume bottles and knick knacks that accumulate on my dresser, stacking books onto their shelves and tucking old letters into accordian folders. I've owned closet organizers and jewelry boxes galore, spent hours poring over the selection of plastic-things-you-can't-live-without at Organized Living, but no.

No, no. The junk box I've tucked under my desk tips over, revealing an embarrassing collection of tampons, guitar strings and old computer cords. My bathing suits are piled on the floor next to an iron I borrowed from a roommate to make a message tee out of iron-on letters. And yeah, yes I did use the hardwood floor for an ironing board. Old concert tickets and new make-up brushes and vintage dresses and borrowed belts are all holding court on my lovely hardwood floor. Somewhere in there is the extra set of housekeys, replaced before I happened to find them in the bottom of an abandoned purse, then lost again before I could enjoy the luxury of owning two sets of keys.

There have, as I said, been attempts at putting my room in order, all of which seemed to throw my world out of order. I'm not that girl, I realized, who is going to hang the clothing in her closet according to color. Hell, I'm barely a girl who is going to hang anything in her closet at all. I'm not the girl who lines up her knick-knacks and keeps her shoes in anything except a pile on her closet floor. I know those girls, with their immaculate, perfect rooms. Rooms that would make my mother weep for joy, rather than weeping at the fact that I slept in a pile of my dirty laundry knotted up with a bedsheet.

I love those girls, I envy those girls, but I'm a different girl entirely. Here is a girl, my room says, who is too busy enjoying her life to be bothered to change her sheets. A girl too busy balancing social engagements and love affairs to spend her time folding her socks, let alone placing them in a drawer. A girl whose life doesn't fit into closets and drawers and under-the-bed storage units. A girl who likes her life a little messy. Okay, a lot messy. A girl who can't be confined by conventional standards of cleanliness and modern decency, who is perfectly satisfied with a life that is a little unkempt.

Or, my room says, this girl is a fucking pig.