When my life feels disordered

When my life feels disordered, I have a habit of compensating by rearranging my room. Since September, my room had been left pretty much as I found it. I have a queen-size bed, two small plastic dressers, a long wooden shoe compartment, a large garment rack, a computer desk, a full-size dining room table (when not in use for Shabbat), a large floor-to-ceiling built-in book case and dress (with impertinently stubborn drawers), a swivel computer chair, a dining room table chair, a radiator, and lot of other miscellaneous items scattered around: a coffee urn - to heat water when Shabbat is in session; stacks of books and papers, suitcases, laundry baskets and hampers, and all the makings of an overloaded twenty-something who has left her parents house but has yet to stake out a permanent place of her own. It’s a big room, to be sure, but with all this “stuff,” my room never felt like a quiet retreat (in part due to the phone ringing off the hook and two little boys running around on the other side of the wall behind my bed.) Furthermore, I’ve never done much in the way of decorating — I’ve always been blessed with roommates who possess an aesthetic touch, so I got away with it. On my own, I’m terribly utilitarian — no painting of the walls, no curtains or framed photographs or posters, no sentimental objects or flowers (I’d probably kill them anyway). No doubt I got this my father, although somehow my other sister seemed to have escaped the almost Puritanical nature of our upbringing.