What inspires you to clean? Some people are just naturally organized people, and to them, life just naturally leads them in the direction that there is a place for everything, and everything in its place.

I’m so not one of those people.

When I was a kid, I would clean voluntarily only when I was angry at my parents. For some reason when I was upset and had to be alone, I would wind up in my room and I would start cleaning. It used to make me even angrier when my dad would come up and try to talk me out of my mad because I felt good that I was cleaning up. Dude, let me be mad for a minute!

Of course, it made me equally angry when he joked about making me mad on purpose, just so I would clean my room. I informed him with 12-year-old indignation that it didn’t work like that.

Now that I’m older, desperation moves me to clean. And when I say “clean” I’m not talking about your run-of-the-mill vacuuming up crumbs or wiping up food spills. I’m talking about moving books from end tables to shelves. Toys from the floor or the sofa to their shelf. Movies from on top of the DVD player to the cabinet.

Or, in my case this week, the explosion of chaos in my office.

What motivated me to clean my office – and I mean completely clean from top to bottom, all stuffed animals taken home and photos tucked away – is a combination of envy, jealousy, shame, and a tiny bit of terror.

I hear at our parent company office out west that the executives leave the office for the day without a scrap of paper on their desk anywhere to be seen. My coworker with whom I share an office cleans off his desk meticulously before leaving on vacation. My office (and this is not entirely my fault, but probably 75% my fault) is a pig sty – a mess of papers and half-finished projects. My desk will at best hold stacks of chaos instead of explosions of chaos.

Oh, and those guys from our parent company are coming out on Friday (enter “shame” and “terror”).

The Christmas ornaments on my side of the office that have been up for an entire year and two months have come down. The photos on my desk hutch that made it cluttered got moved (but not removed). I finally trashed the broken printer with the tech guy’s blessing. The toilet and paper towel rolls I’ve been saving for my kids all came home, my stuffed animals (except one) all got boxed up, and I finally found a more permanent home for some of the random, but completely helpful and necessary, tools of my job.

Now, if I could just get these guys to visit my house…

Amazingly tidy office area photo by sillybean.