I can’t believe it’s the end of the month already (according to my clock I still have 45 minutes until it is June 1, AKA my dad’s birthday)! That means I’ve spent 31 days with Snow White. I never thought I would say such a thing.
31 days of princessly motivation. Did I complete any of my goals, you ask?
Goal 1: Create a personal space that inspires happiness, creativity and calm. I will do this by completing goals 2 and 3.
Status: Incomplete
Reason: See goals 2 and 3
Goal 2: Clean!
Status: Still in progress, but progress has been made! I have gotten rid of 4-5 giant trash bags of clothes, bags, shoes, linens, etc., 3 boxes of books and multiple bags of trash.
Goal 3: Paint my bedroom walls.
Status: Still in progress. This is half done.
If Snow White had been led by the adorable forest animals to my room instead of the dwarfs’ cottage at the beginning of this month – she would’ve flipped her dainty shit. Her animal friends would’ve refused to help her clean. Snow would have then run back to her step mother and died because, well, she was in such a state she forgot she was in mortal danger.
Poor Snow White. Good thing I’m not in the movie.
The dwarf’s cottage wasn’t clean by any sense of the word. Dust everywhere. Shoes in cooking pots. The broom stick covered in dust bunnies. Dirty dishes a mile high. Look at how shocked she is! 
How did the dwarf’s cottage get to be in the state it was in? Were they so tired after dig, dig, digging all day, they didn’t have the energy to clean? Did they not care or notice that their home was a mess? Was due to lack of motivation?
Lack of motivation is one main the symptoms of clinical depression. A person with depression is too busy being depressed to clean (much less anything else). Too tired, too achy, too wrapped up in her emotions that she can’t find it in her to put anything away. Much easier to stay in bed. What’s a little clutter after all?
In the book I’ve been reading this month, The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing, the author, Marie Kondo, says there is a saying, “A messy room equals a messy mind.” Kondo explains, “When a room becomes cluttered, the cause is more than just physical. Visible mess helps distract us from the true source of the disorder. The act of cluttering is really an instinctive reflex that draws our attention away from the heart of an issue.”
How does she know? It is true, the worse I am feeling the dirtier the things around me become. The less I care.
Do the dwarfs have issues they are avoiding? Grumpy, obviously has some problems to work out. But Happy? Dopey seems content to me. Sleepy though, maybe his constant exhaustion is caused by depression.
Goal 4: “Learn how to cross stitch”
End of the month status: Complete!
Check out my handywork:
Goal 5: Bake a pie from scratch.
Status: See blog post “Apple Pie Goal = Complete”
Am I disappointed that I only have two goals complete? Of course. Even though I realized that Snow White’s way to beat depression wasn’t going to be a fix all, I still thought I would’ve been motivated enough to get things done.
Sometimes, though, motivation isn’t enough. Sometimes there are outside factors that prevent you from doing things. Even if you may want to do something, you may be prevented from doing it. Quite often I feel as if there is an invisible barrier between the things I want and need to do and me. I can look, but I can’t touch.
Luckily, Cinderella cleans too! I wonder what other things Cinderella will teach me. Doese she have the cure?
Snow White has been great to get to know. I always thought of her as boring and high-pitched, but her simple outlook on life and how to fix its problems has helped me put a lot of my issues into perspective. So, thank you, Snow White, it’s been real.
Princessly Poised 