Naomi Girson | opinions editor

A lot of people seem to have the impression that I’m put together. Whatever that is supposed to mean. I can promise I am not. I am simply more prepared than the average person.

I can see where they are coming from, with the “put together” descriptor; my hair is normally done, I usually dress myself with some semblance of coordination, and I pretty much get all my assignments done on time.

But I drive home from school everyday, hearing old water bottles from months ago rolling around in my backseat. I arrive at my room draped with clothes, and too many hair products to put away. It makes me feel awful that my car and my bedroom are rarely clean, but I can’t really seem to muster the energy to clean them. Even though it makes me feel worse.

Ever since I was little, I have always had a hard time keeping my papers in order. I wouldn’t lose them or anything, they would just all get slightly bent and creased edges. I would look around at everyone else’s, crisp and pristine. I had no idea how they did it. I was putting my papers in my folder and then into my backpack like everyone else, but I never had them looking as smooth as my peers’.

Even the folder I would put the papers in would start to fall apart at the seams, ripping and bending in all the wrong places, and it would always happen to me before it would happen to anyone else.

My handwriting has always been a little sloppy, even if it has gotten exponentially better. I always prefer to write something fast, rather than write it neatly, so my letters are a cross between cursive and print, depending on how much my pen glides.

I guess what I’m trying to get at here is I feel like I am only staying afloat. I will never be the kind of person who schedules out my whole semester in a spreadsheet, color-coordinating and checking off tasks as I complete them.

I don’t know why I can’t stay on top of all of it like everyone else. I did my laundry last Friday, and the basket of clean clothes has been in my laundry room ever since, waiting to be folded and hung up. (I’ll have to throw them in the dryer for a few more minutes to get out all the wrinkles, which is why I have been waiting on finishing the job.)

It’s an improvement from when I first started doing my own laundry, and I would fail to move the clothes from the washer to the dryer in ample time, forcing me to have to wash them all over again.

I feel like I’m so close to being a real person, a civilized member of society, but I can’t get all my ducks in a row. Every backpack I have ever owned has some kind of pen stain marking my territory on the interior of the bag.

I’m always prepared, but it’s only because it’s the only thing I know how to be. Unprepared feels messy and disorganized, but that’s what I am anyway.

I have everything I, or a neighbor, could ever need stowed away in my bag or my car or my room, and I can find it in five seconds, just don’t let someone else do it for me, or they will be searching all day long.

Naomi Girson can be reached at girsonn@duq.edu