I made this dip to serve at my New Year’s Eve party on December 31. It was full of all the kinds of things that you want in a dip – shredded cheese, cream cheese, salsa, heavy cream, and for some reason, defrosted chopped spinach. Up until last night, it was still sitting in my refrigerator. This is what two-week-old dip looks like:

Why was it still there, two weeks later? I wish I had a good answer for you. I looked at it every day and I thought, I should throw that out. Even on January 1st, when arguably, I could have heated it up and it would have been fine. But last night I decided that I needed to stop acting like a mess, so I threw it out. And then I cleaned my room and hung up some things in my closet and put some clothes in a pile that I need to be dry cleaned. And then I rested because things take time and I am not going to become a non-mess overnight.

I’m sure for that for a while, I’m still going to find birthday cards from three years ago in my purse. I’m still going to drop wadded up dollars on the ground every time I take my hand out of my coat pocket. I’m still going to write everything I need to do during the week in my planner but then not do half of those things because somehow my planner ended up under my comforter, which I will only discover after I can’t find my phone anywhere and I take my comforter off my bed because I know that I often leave my phone on my bed before I get in the shower in the morning.

Or maybe I will always do these things because this is just how I am. If that’s the case, then I apologize to my roommates, who will always have to look at things of mine that have been left in the fridge for too long. And for that matter, I apologize to everyone who comes into my apartment, because our front door’s hinges should be on the opposite side and you sort of have to walk into my room to enter and most of the time, there are things like clothes and bags and umbrellas and receipts and my broken Nook and the lock I use at the gym scattered across my floor. Also, I took my air conditioner out before Hurricane Sandy and it’s still sitting next to my bookshelf.