I hate stuff

There, I said it. I'll say it again: I hate stuff. Not the generic "stuff" that can mean anything, I mean, "stuff," a large amount of crap that seems to accumulate over a lifetime. The collective belongings that come with you when you move, fill up your closets and overwhelm your life.

I hate it all.

In an ideal world, I would own 5 dresses and a pair of flip flops and be able to have an outfit for any and all occasions. I would also own a computer and a toothbrush and maybe that's it.

The thing about all of my belongings is that I love them. I know that makes no sense, but hear me out. I love having the option of choosing a completely different outfit every day. I love the tiny model QANTAS plane that my sorority little sister gave me, the massive photo album from my Israel trip in high school, and the battery operated card shuffler that I got for my 26th birthday and have yet to use but seriously, one day we're playing Blackjack at my house, people.

I love all of that and more. I just don't love the amount of space it takes up.

I moved home yesterday (wah) and for the first time in 9 years, everything I own is under one roof. As I unpacked and tried to merge the stuff I brought back with the stuff that was already at home, I was totally overrun with conflicting emotions. There was a mix of

"Oh my gosh, funky party tops I bought in Australia! I miss it!"

with

"Some things are worth the wait, others are worth the RUSH? We Tufts sorority girls were so clever with our rush t-shirts!"

with

"Hey, my old discman! I'm going to use this for....nothing."

with

"WHERE AM I SUPPOSED TO PUT ALL OF THIS CRAP?"

And so on and so forth. Relative to other people my age, I think I have less stuff than most, mostly because I'm not the shoes/bags/jewelry fanatic that a lot of women are. Not only that, but I'm a compulsive thrower-outer which means that I regularly get fed up with things and chuck them even if a normal person wouldn't do so. Which leads me to wonder where all of you non thrower outers put everything.

The thing that really bothers me about is not so much that I don't have anywhere to put my belongings, because I have now resumed living in a 4 bedroom house and there is certainly plenty of space, technically. The fact that my stuff is not ORGANIZED is what makes me want to break out in hives.

I have a fear of overstuffed drawers and closets. Not being able to close drawers because there's too much shoved in there, or opening up a closet and not being able to grab one dress or sweater because you can't push the other dresses and sweaters aside gives me an irrational level of anxiety.

I also like all my things to be easily accessible and for me to know exactly where they are. If someone asked, "Arielle, where are your Pumas?" I would probably cry because there are a ton of boxes in the basement containing everything I didn't need for a summer in New York City and I wouldn't even know where to begin in trying to locate those damn shoes.

Furthermore, I don't like not being able to see everything. My bedroom closet at home is supremely narrow, but deep enough that there was, at some point in time, room to put a bunch of shelves and boxes and other nonsense on the floor. Now it's gotten to the point where I don't even know what all is in there and it's not really a task I feel like tackling so instead when I open my closet I just want to scream WHAT IS BEHIND ALL THOSE CLOTHES AND WHAT ARE IN THESE BOXES AND WHY CAN I NOT HAVE A HUGE CLOSET LIKE IN THE SEX AND THE CITY MOVIE WHERE I CAN JUST PUT EVERYTHING AND HAVE THERE BE SIX INCHES OF SPACE IN BETWEEN EVERY BOOK OR PAIR OF SHOES OR SWEATER OR RANDOM TCHOTCHKE FROM MY YOUTH?

My last apartment in Boston had TWO closets. I had a place to put all my shoes without stacking any of them, there was never a hanger with more than one article of clothing on it, and in general I was at peace with the state of my life. Eventually I will learn to live with the fact that I don't have a closet big enough to spread out my belongings in the organized, easily visible and accessible way I would like. And then the winter will come and I'll have to unpack all the aforementioned bags and boxes of summer-inappropriate stuff that are sitting in the basement from when I moved home from Boston, and the process will begin all over again.

Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out.

Just gimme the liiiiight

As long as it stops raining (fingers crossed), I will be trekking into Brooklyn tonight with my peeps Anna and Avani for a free Sean Paul concert. Or as I like to say, "Seana Paul." In the Sean Paul voice.

When I arrived to my temp job this morning, I had the following email from Avani:

"It's really gross out. I hope it stops raining before this evening!"

I also had the following response from Anna:

"Um ya. If it's not the right temperature to shelter me from the storm I'm not feeling the concert.

I just wrote that."

This, my peoples, is why Anna and I are friends.

And if this post makes no sense to you, I apologize. You are probably not a fan of Seana Paul. And yes, I only hang out with people whose names start with "A." Just so you know.

When I grow up...

Three of my friends recently shared this link on Facebook. It's a New York Times Magazine article about how 20-somethings are taking longer to grow up these days, how they're traveling around, relying on their parents too much, "avoiding commitments" and otherwise not accepting the imminent demise of their youths.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I didn't read the whole article. It was really long and I got lazy. Judging by the comment stream on Facebook there is a lot more to the article than what I read. But I'm just commenting on the first section. You know, in case any of you read the whole thing and get confused as to why I didn't address the rest of it.

The article mentioned the 5 milestones of adulthood: completing school, leaving home, becoming financially independent, marrying and having a child. People are reaching these milestones later than ever, and apparently, this is concerning.

While the article fully admits that the idea of these milestones is outdated, it still sort of uses them as a basis on which to judge whether or not people have "grown up."

This concept, in my opinion, is completely and totally ridiculous in a really frustrating way.

While I have successfully reached the first 3 milestones, it will be a long time before I reach the last 2, if ever. Furthermore, I'm moving back home in a few days and while I don't receive any money from my parents, I'm not really sure you can be considered financially independent if you live at home and don't pay for rent, food or laundry. So essentially I'm back at milestone #1, which I have actually completed twice (extra credit?).

Somehow, though, I don't feel like any less of an adult. My concerns these days are more of "I need to find a job," "I have a mountain of debt," and "WHY THE FUCK DIDN'T MY WALL STREET JOURNAL COME TODAY?" (seriously, that stressed me out and is pretty much the reason why I thought to even write this post). These are far different concerns than the ones I had when I was 22, fresh out of college and admittedly a lot less mature. I worried about where I would drink on the weekends and whether or not I would receive any funny emails at work that day. Those are still my concerns, don't get me wrong, but they've moved down on the priority list.

When I think about my friends who are married or have children, it seems totally foreign to me. I say things like "Wow, he/she is like a REAL PERSON now," but it's all said in the spirit of facetiousness. Because really, I don't think that having a spouse or a child makes someone any more of an adult. It means they may have more responsibilities and again, different priorities, but not necessarily that they're more "adult."

The difference between being single and free childless and being married with children is mostly circumstantial, and partially a matter of different life choices. My [legally] single friends aren't married because they haven't met the right person or haven't reached that point in their relationships (circumstances). The reason they don't have children is because they haven't decided that they want children yet (life choices - because even if you're single, if you want a baby you can obviously have one anyway).

I guess the idea that I'm not an adult purely because I haven't yet completed the good ol' all-American college-job-husband-child path really just doesn't sit well with me. What about the path of college-job-grad school-focus on career-kick ass at aformentioned career-let the husband/baby thing happen when it happens? I don't think there is anything wrong with slowing down and taking the time to figure out what's right for me. Maybe if everyone wasn't so desperate to get married we wouldn't have a 50% divorce rate in this country.

If your blogs are any indication, I have a feeling a lot of you out there would agree with me on this one.