Confessions of a Neat-Freak
By Marni Myers

Editor's note: This article is a companion article to "Confessions of a Slob." The articles were written by two sisters, raised in the same household, who turned out very different.aaaaa

aaaaa admit it: I am a neat-freak. And here's another admission for you: I like being a neat-freak. I wish everyone could be as tidy, clean, and organized as I am. I derive great joy from cleaning, sorting, organizing, and, especially, throwing things out. I put away my clothes as soon as I take them off at night, even if I'm very tired. I rarely let dishes pile up in the sink. I go through my closets, personal papers, books, CDs and other possessions with some regularity, throwing out things I haven't used in a long time and am not likely to use in the foreseeable future. (And as a side-note on this topic, after helping one of my friend's move recently, she told me that in her old apt, my first name is now a verb meaning to throw things out, as in "You still have those old sheets? You need to Marni them." Immortality, achieved!) I love the smell of Formula 409 sprayed across my kitchen countertops after I've done the dishes, or the fresh scent of Clorox cleaning wipes as I'm giving the bathroom the once-over. I find few things as satisfying as standing in the middle of an immaculate room that I've just finished cleaning.
aaaaaTo give you an example of just how freakish I really am, a few years ago I moved into a stand-alone house after many years of apartment living. Do you know what excited me most about living there? Not the big backyard, surrounded by mature, leafy trees, so perfect for summer barbecues or just sunning with a good book, or the possibility of having loud parties until the wee hours of the morning. Not even the knowledge that I could finally paint the walls any color I wanted and put as many holes in them as my heart desired. No, the moment I was most thrilled about living in this free-standing house was when I realized that I could vacuum the floor at any time of the day or night, without fear of disturbing the neighbors living below me. I am not making this up. aaaaaWhen I gleefully told my sister about my realization a few days later, she just shook her head and said, "You are such a Monica!"--meaning I was like obsessively clean Monica on Friends. I couldn't believe I hadn't been compared to her sooner.	a
aaaaaI tried once to be less compulsive in my neatness, by leaving my clothes on the floor when I went to bed at night. The first time I tried it, I woke up the next morning feeling so proud of myself for being able to change my neat-freak ways, to become more "normal". But I found that, after a few days, I just couldn't do it anymore. I just couldn't be messy. Lying in my bed at night, trying to fall asleep, I was nagged by thoughts of my crumpled clothes, languishing in an untidy heap on my floor. I couldn't bear the thought of it, and would finally get up and put them away in the dark, then crawl back into bed and sleep peacefully. After a few nights of wrestling with my inner neat-freak, I abandoned all attempts at messiness, resigning myself to the fact that I was, at heart, an incurable neat-freak. As if there had been any doubt before. aaaaaI think my neat-freakedness is partly a factor of my upbringing and partly an inherent trait I was born with, nurture serving to bring out what Nature had already implanted. My mother trained my siblings and me in the value of work from an early age, using job charts, job jars, and job wheels to not only help keep the house clean, but also to instill in us the importance of hard work, both for its own sake and to earn a living. I remember my mom teaching me how to clean the bathroom one Saturday when I was only three or four years old: use a sponge to scrub the sink with cleanser, then rinse it with water, wipe down the counters, and polish the faucet. (Bathroom cleaning lessons later evolved to include specific, step-by-step procedures for properly cleaning the toilet, which I still follow to this day.) When grandparents came over for Sunday dinner the next day, I proudly led them by the hand into the bathroom to witness and praise my excellent handiwork. aaaaaSaturday mornings in our house meant working. We were allowed to watch cartoons until 10am, after which we had to start on our list of chores for that day--usually three to five, depending on the size of the task. We couldn't play with our friends until all our jobs had been completed to my mother's satisfaction. At the conclusion of every job, she'd come inspect our work, and if it wasn't up to par--if, for instance, we had neglected to clean the mirror in the bathroom, or she found dust behind the photos on the top of the piano--we had to do the job again. Thanks to my mother's training, I am a very thorough cleaner. I seriously doubt even the head housekeeper at Buckingham Palace has higher standards for cleanliness than my mother. aaaaaWhen I got a little older and found that my weekly allowance didn't always cover the cost of the things I wanted to buy--say, the newest Wham! album, or that shiny 10-speed bike I had my eye on--my mom let me do odd jobs around the house for money, things like wiping down the walls and baseboards (a job which also occasionally showed up in on our Saturday job charts, by the way), removing the screens and cleaning the outsides of all the windows, or sweeping out the garage. Each job had a monetary value assigned to it, and I was required to get my mom's seal of approval before I could put those two quarters into my money jar at the completion of a task. aaaaaIt wasn't until I was out of college and beginning my professional career that I began to suspect that perhaps the basic level of cleanliness I had always taken for granted wasn't universal. I had always thought that my tidy college roommates were just being considerate, knowing how important it was for everyone to pitch in and keep the common areas clean in the interest of preserving amicable roommate relations. But then, after college, I moved in with a series of less-than-tidy roommates, and, although I loved them each dearly, their messy ways--their obliviousness to the dirty dishes piling in the sink, to the crumbs and lint collecting on the living room floor, to the piles of paper and mail and magazines on the coffee table--began to take its toll on our friendship. After a few months of living together, I inevitably came to resent the time I had to spend cleaning up after them: the fact that they didn't vacuum when it was their turn, left a trail of socks, shoes and cups around the sofa by the TV every night, or went to bed without cleaning up their dinner remains, leaving uneaten food, crusty pans and used dishes scattered around the kitchen. I told myself it wasn't willful negligence on their parts; they just weren't bothered by the dirt and clutter like I was. Nevertheless, I grumbled about them under my breath every time I had to move their piles of unopened mail and old receipts off the coffee table, or scrape all the hair out of the shower drain, again, or put their leftovers into Tupperware before washing their dishes at night. aaaaaAnd here is where we get to the heart of a neat-freak's compulsive cleaning habits. You see, all of my constant cleaning and tidying wasn't just the result of a strong work ethic, or even done solely in the interest of keeping my kitchen cockroach-free. The bigger issue at play was that living in a cluttered, unclean environment is actually physically stressful for me. I can't relax or feel comfortable in a space that isn't orderly. My mind can neither concentrate nor rest when I am surrounded by such chaos. For me, being in a messy and/or unclean room is like having a runny nose streaming down my face and never wiping it off. Even in high school, I couldn't begin to do my homework until I had straightened my bedroom. These days, I can't leave the house in the morning or go to bed at night until I am satisfied that everything has been returned to its proper place and order has been imposed. I breathe easier when I know there are no soiled surfaces, no hidden dust bunnies in the corners, no items astray. Until that state has been achieved, I am always at least a little bit agitated. On the other hand, put me into a clean, uncluttered space, and my bliss knows no bounds. aaaaaThese days, I make no bones about the fact that I am a neat-freak. After all, why should I be embarrassed about being clean? Even slobs will usually admit that they prefer a neat environment to a messy one; they just can't usually be bothered to make the distinction. So go ahead, call me a Monica. I'll simply don my rubber gloves and keep on scrubbing. Oh, and by the way, there's a closet in your house that could really use some work.