Virginia Sole-Smith: “Perfectionism and the Performance of Organizing”

I finished reorganizing my family’s food-storage containers/lids system and our pots/pans cabinet the day I read Virginia Sole-Smith’s essay “Perfectionism and the Performance of Organizing”, and let me tell you: I instantly broke into a cold sweat.

This part, in particular:

Organizing is a complicated drug. It’s about instant gratification and control: This drawer/closet/mudroom looks so much better than when I started. But it’s also an illusion of control: This drawer/closet/mudroom will look like shit again in a few weeks or months and I’ll have to do it again.

And this:

Another diet culture thread worth naming here is how I feel about my relationship with organizing the way lots of people feel about their relationship to exercise: It seems mostly good for my mental health and well-being? Until it gets super obsessive and unsustainable and no I can’t always tell when I’ve crossed over that line? As I was putting my children’s markers in rainbow order (I know, I know, THAT WAS THE LINE)

Whew. I need a lie-down.

(via Anne Helen Petersen)