Going Nowhere - Katie Burke

Various clothes I’d worn all week were strewn on the floor: inside-out jeans doing the splits next to my bed; strappy sandals bottomed-up, revealing just how dirty the dance floor at my sister’s wedding had been; button-up work shirts, buttoned all the way down, arms pointing in opposite directions; and lingerie in between, shamelessly punctuating these mentionables.

These were but some of the wayward souls who had not quite made it into the laundry basket, the shoe closet, the dry cleaning bag.

Empty plates and cups, crumpled paper towels, and burned-out matches in the living room told the story of my lighting candles to write by, food set out on the table for me to eat while I created – and they also told how exhausted I was, so tired that I couldn’t manage to bring the dishes in to the sink, where they would join stacks of dishes building up, awaiting hand-washing, since there was no dishwasher, and I just couldn’t find the time or energy to get that task done each night.

And oh, the full-length mirror just off the kitchen, right next to the bathroom – my last stop before walking out the door each morning. This reflective surface, meant for truth-telling about the hair, the makeup, the fit of the clothes, was for my primping purposes – not, as it had become, as a repository littered with Post-It notes stacked with to-do items. My to-do list was stored on a Word document in my laptop, down the hall and just two rooms away.

Never one to deep clean, I had people come in every two weeks for the laborious mopping, vacuuming, window-washing, dusting – all the tasks that keep my little one-bedroom apartment microscope-ready. But I’m the one who keeps the floors clothing-free, the to-do list on the computer updated, and the mirror free of random remembrances of things I needed to do, but did not have the time to walk two rooms over to document.

Very tidy by nature, the state of my living quarters bothered me. My apartment was both evidence of, and witness to, the frenzied insides of my mind. My chaotic life manifested in each room, then anyone looking on would see I was going nowhere fast.

I wasn’t lazy. I wasn’t a slob. That is the most bothersome part; I was just that tired. My little one-bedroom, single woman’s life was in too much disarray for me to manage.

My shoes now tucked into the closet; all dirty clothes in the various bins for their cleaning; all dishes cleared from the living room coffee table and kitchen sink, and put away in the kitchen cabinets; all reminders of what I need to do neatly listed on one document; and the mirror cleared of Post-Its and free to be a reflective surface once again, I am going somewhere.

Space and energy have returned to my life. Order restored, I long to see what will unfold.