Unfinished

I've been watching those Hoarder shows lately. People living in mass chaos, overwhelming clutter, to say the least. Piles everywhere. Whole rooms, levels, even, unusable. I watched one episode last night about a hoarding couple. Their dining room table was literally lost under a pile of stuff. From floor to ceiling, in every room, there were mounds of trinkets, boxes, clothes. Paths had been forged from room to room. This couple was addicted to shopping at thrift stores, and loved the hunt for a bargain. At the Salvation Army the wife saw an overstuffed arm chair marked half price, $30, and brought her husband over to take a look. "I thought it would make a nice accent piece for the living room," she said. They bought it. (Editor's note: my furniture-impaired husband didn't see the irony here and felt that I should explain. An accent piece, for a room that is buried in several feet of junk, has to be ironic, right?)

I watch these shows with feelings of judgment and superiority. I certainly feel better about myself and my house compared to those on Hoarders: Buried Alive. But every once in a while I can actually relate. This woman, with her ugly chair that, quite literally, won't fit into her living room, had a vision, a plan. She knew what she wanted her house to look like. When she is out shopping, away from the piles and the clutter, she sees something that will bring her closer to that vision. I found it so interesting, endearing, actually, that after twenty-odd years of living in her house, filling it (to the brim) with "treasures," she still soldiered on in the belief that someday she would have the home of her dreams. But things got in her way. Life and kids and addictions and, in her case, actual things.

I can identify with that. I'm good at getting an idea and starting the process. But when it takes longer than expected, or there are bumps along the way, I lose interest. Actually, it's not that I lose interest, it's more like I lose momentum. So, like this lady who, in amongst (I love that word) all her stuff, has over 50 beautiful painted plates she had once intended to hang on her walls, I have empty picture frames hanging on mine. Now, my wall has only looked like this for a few weeks, but the task has become bigger than I intended. I found all the frames right away, but when I opened them up, a couple were missing the hanging thingies and when I took them back the store was out of the sizes I need. A couple more fell off the wall because I was too hasty in hanging them and hadn't anchored them correctly. Still haven't. Then, finding the right pictures, vertical and horizontal, isn't as easy as I thought it would be. Trying to decide which pictures should be blown up to 14 x 11 is really scary! It had better be a darn good picture to be that big and hanging in my family room where I have to look at it all day. So instead, all day, I look at paper taped to my wall with blank and missing picture frames. While it's not 7-foot piles of gum wrappers and old phone books, it's still an eyesore and not the look I had in mind.

But, I've stopped seeing it. When I first found the template sheets and taped them to my wall, I was gung ho getting the project underway. I went right back to the store, bought the frames and couldn't get them hung up fast enough. But now that I've hit a few glitches and my picture wall is at a standstill, I will go for days without even thinking about it. I spend easily 75% of my day in the kitchen/family room part of my house and yet I somehow stopped noticing the empty and missing frames staring me in the face.

That is, until I'm having people over. Then I start seeing my house through the eyes of the visitor. I like for people to come into my home and feel welcome, feel like they can relax, and feel like Sara must really have it all together. My picture wall is not sending that message right now (along with my stained carpet, but that's for another post). I use the act of inviting people over as my kick-in-the-butt to get the house cleaned and projects done.

I don't mean to make light of hoarding. I do realize that it's an illness and something far deeper than just being messy. But I can't help but notice that all of the hoarders I have seen have one thing in common; they have stopped having anyone come into their house. I wonder if, like the paper template I have stopped seeing taped to my wall, a hoarder stops seeing the mess. And because they, at some point along the way, decided not to allow others to come past their front door, they never have to see it through an outsider's eyes. If I stopped having people over, who knows what my house would look like!

So, last night while I lounged on my couch watching Hoarders and judging with no abandon, my less-than-half completed picture wall loomed above me. On the other hand, if I've learned anything from watching these shows, it's that the answer to my picture problem is not more picture frames.