Once, sitting in my living room and casting an ever-critical eye about my toy-cluttered and undoubtedly undusted living room, my beloved grandmother had the audacity to comment "I guess you just don't like doing housework."
If you know my grandmother then this is not an entirely surprising comment, and if you know me then you know that there are about a hundred or more responses to this that one just doesn't say to ones Grandmother. I'm sure if I didn't just stand there sputtering and fuming I very likely produced a feral grin and shortly found an excuse to leave the room. The irony is that having had such a comment thrown my way and dealing with the resulting inner monologue, I probably went and did the dishes or cleaned something, because that's what I do when I need to calm down.
Despite less than tactful bluntness, I can see where my Grandmother might get a certain impression about my relationship with housework.
I feel like I live in a constant disaster zone.
I feel like every waking minute of the day, if I'm not cleaning or tidying, I'm planning the next 10 moves in the never-ending process that is Cleaning My House.
I can't relax. I can't enjoy my children because there are always 20 or more things to do and I'm lucky if I get to three of them in a day.
I'm the sort of person who loves a clean house (I really do). I love cleaning. I love organizing. And the resulting calm I feel when it is completed is truly blissful. It's just that I love doing it all by myself, with Billy Holiday or Annie Lennox or SmashMouth or whomever, blaring in the background. I like cleaning when I can start and finish in the same session. When I clean I go into overdrive, focusing entirely on the task at hand and (insert-deity-of-your-choice-here) help you if you interrupt the process. You see where this is going don't you?
Some weeks are good and I feel on top of things - I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Or in this case the gleaming clean house at the end of the tunnel. Others are not so good. Yesterday was both good and bad. I managed to get a higher number of tasks done and yet had a breakdown of momentous proportions. Unfortunately, sometimes being able to envision the gleaming clean house at the end of the tunnel is worse than muddling through in the dark, bumping your shins on the coffee table. Whatever the case, I found myself thinking, 'Girl, you need some perspective!!' So today, between bouts of nursing, solving of preschooler crisis (The longboat is stuck in the ship's hold Mommeeeee!!!), and - ahem - cleaning, I'm writing this post.
I really need to do something about the stress my messy house is causing me. Steve has agreed that when I go back to work and have a pay-cheque again we will hire some periodic help. In the meantime I have to juggle kids, clutter, and finding that theoretic job with finding time for myself, my yoga, and my writing, so that I can be a good mom and not a woman on the verge... or in today's pop culture vernacular - A Desperate Housewife.
Friends and I have talked about the stresses of consantly cleaning but still I feel like I'm alone in this particular insanity. Like I'm the only one who can't handle it. Like everyone else is OK and it's just me who feels completely overwhelmed. Like everyone else can either do it or just doesn't let it get to them. I know this probably isn't fair to all the other moms, many of them my friends, who feel exactly the same way at some time or other, but there it is. Then again, maybe I just don't like house work.
I really can't remember what life was like before kids. I do know that this kind of panic/stress over my house started when I was pregnant with Liam. That first trimester I had absolutely NO energy and I couldn't get anything done. I remember calling Steve at work in tears, begging him to help me by committing to making Saturday mornings a scheduled cleaning time (He was REALLY resistant to scheduling back then - two kids have changed that though). So apparently I had some level of cleanliness that I attained frequently enough to have a breakdown over NOT being able to achieve it. I have to admit, though, that Steve and I were one of those couples where the house may look clean as long as you didn't enter the 'clutter room.' Yes those people on 'Clean Sweep' and 'Neat' really do exist. This is largely due to hoarding (mostly me - I had school NOTES from HIGHSCHOOL fergoshsakes!!!) and extreme lack of storage, as well as Steve's 600(?)+ CD collection and my ever-growing personal library. Once Liam came along and we were forced to consolidate offices and create a nursery, SOMETHING had to be done.
So since New Years 2003 we have been PURGING and DECLUTTERING. And purging and decluttering, and purging and decluttering, and paying our dues to Rubbermaid and Sterlite, and then purging and decluttering again, with a trip to IKEA now and then, and then more purging and decluttering, and building of a shed and expanding another shed and building some deck storage, and another round of purging and decluttering. I'm getting REALLY good at purging and decluttering, but still I feel like I can't manage to have a clean house. Of course if I ever do, I'll probably lock the whole family outside and they'll have to break down the door and take me away in a straight jacket.
As I sit and write this, I realize it isn't so bad in here. Sure I have a few months worth of paperwork to deal with piled all over the dining area, which is going to require the purging and decluttering of ALL the drawers in my computer area to get it under control - and I'm going to need a few hours of time BY MYSELF to achieve this. But otherwise it really isn't so bad.
Maybe I can say that because I've got a bit of perspective now. Because I spent the day, not cleaning or stressing about cleaning, but helping a friend, another 'desperate housewife', just by being there, and listening, and having a cup of tea while our kids entertained each other. And when she apologized for the mess her house was in I could honestly say I couldn't see it, because I know that, just like me in MY house, she is viscerally aware of every little annoying bit of dust and food and clutter in each and every room of HER house. And there is no way for anyone to have that kind of awareness of another's house. And I'm a friend, so I don't see those things because I don't look for them.
I think I need to remember that the vision of the gleaming clean house is really just a mirage. At least as long as there are small children with all their toys and clothes and crafts and eating habits - and as long as there isn't a six figure income to support hired help. I have to remember that the way we have chosen to raise our kids doesn't prioritize a neat and tidy house - and then I have to let go of the stress and just ENJOY these little tazmanian devils and all the clutter they create and the time they demand of me.
Or maybe I should just own up to it and admit that I just don't like housework.
