Some people thrive on organization. They love it. They get excited about new calendars, love organizing challenges and multi-task with annoying ease. I’m sure early January makes them giddy with scheduling glee. I am not this person. I never have been. It took me 43 years to accept this. Is it my favorite trait? Probably not. It would make life a whole lot easier if organization was something I enjoyed, but let me be blunt…I think organizing tasks are among the most boring, life-sucking activities that I could do. I’m happy for you if you like them, but they just aren’t my bag baby.

I grew up with two older sisters who literally THRIVE on organization. I have always admired them for not only their organizational abilities, but the fact that they actually enjoyed it. One of my sisters actually emailed me 2 weeks before Christmas this year, when I was scrambling to get everything done, to plan Easter with me. Seriously? How can I, a mere disorganized mortal, keep up with that? Being the youngest in a family of 3 girls is already fodder for feeling non-essential, so my extreme lack of organizational skills, was the icing on the cake. I had several occasions that I recall, with dread, where my lack of organization put me in the line of fire with teachers and other authority figures. Authority loves organization, therefore authority didn’t always love me. It hurt my self-image…a lot.

My room was always a mess growing up. A big one. It was customary in the 1980s to receive a wall plaque with an image of a child praying as a First Communion gift. Most are serene and solemn images. The plaque I received was a cartoon image of an angel with her halo on crooked and the caption ‘Bless This Mess’, the exact one pictured in this post. Every time I turned my bedroom light on or off until I left home after college, I was reminded that I was cute, yes, but a mess. What can I say? It fit me.

I was not born to be neat and organized. I was born to rock the boat, not organize it. There was nothing wrong with me, I just had different priorities. I fought it most of my life. I tried to conform all the way along my life path and that’s why I always felt like I was suffocating. You simply can’t continue to pretend to be something that you are not, no matter how much easier it would make life. Your life will find a way to call forth your power and it might be very unpleasant if you try to ignore it. It can be lonely because most people don’t want to rock the boat or even be in a boat that’s rocking.

So, yes, I am disorganized. There is just no denying it, but I am also a great out of the box thinker, bad ass independent soul who won’t follow conventional wisdom blindly and who is willing and able to make noise and bring light to subjects that get ignored too often by our ‘pay no attention to the man behind the curtain’ media.

I would love your company in any way you wish to give it, as a fellow change catalyst, silent observer or somewhere in between. That First Communion plaque was right on. God bless this mess (me)…and you if you are one!

If you are a boat rocker or just want to watch the show, welcome aboard <3