My desk is full to the brim.

Do desks have brims? My desk is rimless….so it must be brimless, too.

I am only limited by the height of our ceiling as to what can be piled on our desk.

“Our desk”.

It’s all of our desk.

The thing about this desk, though, is that no matter how many times I clean it, a few days later, it’s piled high with paper and glue sticks and markers with no caps and pencils with the erasers gnawed off.

I can have a surface wiped clean….a surface ready for new and organized thoughts and projects….and a couple of days later, I’m hunting for a bare spot that’s level enough to set a french press down into.

Now, for all my effort (which, if you know me, is actually probably fairly minimal) , I can’t really stay ahead of these juggernauts of creativity.

I can’t stay ahead of these kids….with their messes.

I can’t clean fast enough.

That’s my excuse….”these kids”.

I’ve heard that children learn what they live….or live what they see…or be who they are….or “just be me”.

If that’s true, then my children live with a trainwreck of accumulation and disorganization….named ME.

They learn what they live.

I suppose that the real story here is how Jenny keeps ahead of any of us.

What am I complaining about? I’M PART OF THE PROBLEM!!

I did a brake job on the minivan last night….front brakes…pads…the easy end of the brake work….and found all my tools in the jumble of a tool room that lives in the back corner of the basement.

I found everything quickly and efficiently.

Now, to do a brake job doesn’t require a bunch of tools….maybe a big c-clamp, the biggest screwdriver in the bunch….a 1/2 ratchet with some big sockets…the smaller socket set…some brake grease….brake cleaner…a shop rag…

It doesn’t take a lot, really.

But…in the disorganization, I could put my hand on every single piece of tool that I needed.

It was almost like I knew where it was.

Funny how our brains work.

Someday, I may forget how to butter toast….but I’ll remember how much I miss a messy desk…..and the reasons for the mess in the first place.

I may miss having to pick up 4 pencils before I find one that has an intact eraser.

I may wonder someday why a marker still has some moisture in it.

Ah…time is a slowly moving cloud….drifting….drifting…while I’m down here, landlocked… and missing most of what floats by.

What I fail to really notice now, I’ll miss later….like my life depended on it.

This desk is a mess.