My bedroom is like a cesspit

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Photo by JESHOOTS.COM on Unsplash

Do you ever put off doing something because you need to tidy up first?

As I write this, I’m sitting at my desk in my bedroom, which, as a friend sometimes says, is ‘a bit cessy’.

Cessy is short for cesspit, and it’s a term some girlfriends and I used when describing our messy surroundings when we shared a house together a few years ago.

The muddle around me looks a bit like the middle aisle at Aldi on a Saturday afternoon before Christmas.

You know, the one where they put piles of discount baked bean tins next to a selection of build-your-own treehouses and some Paw Patrol underwear.

Or a blow-up bed shaped like a caterpillar next to a jumbo packet of Monster Munch and some flip-flops for babies, all of which you feel could easily slot into your life or be given to someone’s child for Christmas 2025, so you add a few to your trolley.

This is the jumble sale I find myself in today.

Until very recently, there was a bra on my desk, which I threw across the room a few nights ago to cover the glow of a cable.

I don’t know who Tracy is or who I went on a date with. Maybe it was Tracy? Or Beyoncé?

I’ve been unwell with a temperature this week, so I’ve spent almost three days looking at this cessy situation from my bed and thinking about how, when I’m better, the first thing I’ll do is tidy up, because NOTHING CAN HAPPEN and I CAN’T DO ANYTHING until things are in the right place.

But today I’ve been brave.

I am dressed, I am showered, and I have said bra on.

I have opened my blinds, and I can see the crispy brown leaves on the horse chestnut tree opposite my flat and the particles of dust floating in the sunbeams around me.

I am feeling better after two ibuprofen and I’m sitting on my wobbly chair at my desk and have opened my laptop and typed these sentences among the loose pairs of glasses and scribbled on Post-It notes that say things like “Friday [underlined] date nails Tracy Beyoncé Spain” with hair and fluff stuck to the sticky strip.

(Does anyone else write on both sides of a Post-It note? This one has been on my desk for at least four months, because I went to Spain in June. I don’t know who Tracy is or who I went on a date with. Maybe it was Tracy? Or Beyoncé? But I’m not into women. Hmmm.)

If we did a Zoom call right now you’d have no idea about any of this.

From the chest up, things look pretty good in the background. There are two pictures on the wall behind me (it took only six years for me to choose, frame and put them up) and a William Morris print lampshade I got in the sale on my bedside table.

It could almost be a formal living room because it has a high ceiling and greige-coloured walls.

(It once was a living room, until almost every house in my street was split into flats, and then one-bedroom dwellings were sold as two-beds, with teeny kitchen/living areas at the back.)

Why am I describing my Aldi-inspired bedroom today? I don’t know exactly, but maybe it’s to give you more of a sense of who I am and what my life is like.

Messy, imperfect, random, uncontrolled. (To understand this better, read about how I ended up taking a packet of watercress and a toaster to a hospital appointment in central London.)

Maybe I’ve resisted sorting the mess because I’m used to it: it’s familiar and safe. But I know that once I start tidying after I’ve finished writing I’ll be unstoppable.

I won’t do it in an ordered way – I’ll probably start with picking out books to go to the charity shop but halfway through decide to change my bedsheets or vacuum the curtains (actually, I’ve never done that – does anyone?).

Then I’ll get hungry and eat my emergency stock of potato waffles or make another cinnamon and apple cake and return to my room when it’s dark to find books all over my naked mattress and half a curtain stuck up the vacuum.

I guess the ‘message,’ if there is one, is that there’s always something going on below the surface - and not just on the bedroom floor.

I’m not about to show you pictures of the cesspit (I know I said ‘click for photos,’ but that was clickbait, sorry not sorry), but I have been thinking about how people put on a front and say they’re OK, when if you gently scratch below the surface, they really are not.

“We don’t attract what we want; we attract what we are,” Lori Gottlieb

(By the way - I really am OK, despite the mess and my temperature, I’m actually feeling autumnally content and excited about the transformation my bedroom is about to undertake.)

So, how are you today? Are you also messily content, having accepted your untidy surroundings and focused on things that are more important? And, is there anyone you could check on to see if they are really OK among their own life’s muddle?

And, do you also ‘have’ to have a spotless bedroom/home before you can do anything else?

Things I like

Every other week, I usually put together a list of ‘things I like’ - sometimes a longish list, sometimes some ramblings with a short list. This week is the latter.

What are you attracting?

I’ve talked about the psychotherapist Lori Gottlieb before, and I love her Dear Therapist column in The Atlantic.

She recently posted this phrase on Instagram: “We don’t attract what we want; we attract what we are,” in response to a man asking what he should do about falling for someone who is already in a relationship.

“Why we choose unavailable partners (or those who can’t meet our needs) and how to break the cycle,” Lori wrote, pointing people to the answer in her column.

I was intrigued.

If you’re attracted to someone unavailable emotionally, chances are you are somehow unavailable yourself, she says.

And, if you click through to her column (you can get free access for a month), you’ll read that she also says: “People tend to obsess over partners who trigger their deepest insecurities,” which is what this man is probably subconsciously doing.

Wow - so much to think about there. It’s a bit of a tongue twister for your mind, but I think what she’s saying is it’s good to work on understanding yourself and your own reaction to something (could be anything) before working out why someone else behaves how they do.

I’ve always thought that it’s important for a potential partner to ‘get’ me, to understand and listen to me. I still do think this, but now I also know I need to ‘get’ myself first, messy bedroom and all.

Lori also has a free podcast where she talks about everything from setting boundaries at work to dealing with a shaky marriage.

Don’t judge a book…

I’ve also mentioned mental health campaigner (and former Love Islander) Dr Alex George before, and here he is, talking about how he was approached by a tough-looking man in a nightclub, and how he made assumptions about him.

How people appear “tells you nothing about what’s going on inside,” Dr Alex says. He also has a podcast, the Stompcast, where he walks and talks with people about their mental health. Worth a listen.

Now, where are those potato waffles…