I keep thinking that someday I’ll get my house clean and it will stay that way. Some day it will be clean enough. Some day I will be thin enough. Some day I will be smart enough. I was going to add rich enough but I’m not someone who is searching for riches. That’s my husband’s job, although I want to spend the riches when he finds them!
Let’s face facts. Our homes are never going to be clean enough and they are never going to JUST STAY CLEAN, dang it! We clean our kitchen counter off every day and it is always a mess because we use it! When I go into someone’s home, I don’t want to hear excuses of why it looks the way it does, and neither does anyone else. It makes people uncomfortable.
I used to have a neighbor whose house was always perfectly immaculate. I went into it a few times and nothing was ever out of place. Every time I walked in the door she would say, “I’m sorry it’s such a mess in here”. …What! Is there invisible dirt hiding somewhere that I can’t see? Are there socks in a drawer that haven’t been ironed? It was creepy I tell you and I always ran out of there as fast as I could!
I don’t believe a home can be too clean but I do believe a person can be too obsessed about it. It reminds me of someone who is anorexic. They are thin but they can’t see it. All they see when they look in the mirror is a fat person. They are sick and need professional help to learn how to accept reality. People who have immaculately clean homes and then apologize for the mess also need to seek professional help. Immediately!
I have a friend whose home is always a disaster. There are toys everywhere, the garbage cans are overflowing and the floors are sticky. It’s not because she’s lazy and doesn’t clean it. She has four little kids at home! She grows her own food, she makes crafts with her kids every day, she prepares a home-cooked meal every night, she has a church calling that she is devoted to and who knows what else she is involved in. She wouldn’t give up any of that to have a perfectly clean house. She always has a whirlwind of activities going on around her and she never makes excuses for the mess. The best part about it is I always feel completely comfortable in her home. As long as I keep my shoes on!
Make room in your life for the people you love and even make room for the messes. You can be happy with your home right now. You don’t have to wait until it is cleaner, or more organized or all your projects are complete. You do your best and it is beautiful the way it is. Yes, it will be a little bit more organized tomorrow than it was today because you are working on it, but don’t make excuses for it. Just enjoy it and everyone else will too.
[tags]cleaning, obsessive, scary, weird, love, mess, happy, home, parenting, housekeeping, motherhood, family, priorities[/tags]
Thanks to Ben Cumming. from Flickr, for the photo, used under a Creative Commons License.
8 responses so far ↓
Erica // Jan 18, 2007 at 8:49 am
My motto this year: It may not be a perfectly clean house…but it is a HAPPY HOUSE
Now I need to stop apologising for it!
Whitney // Jan 18, 2007 at 1:01 pm
I was once talking with a freind who was married to the CEO of a hospital in our area. I was talking about how hard it was to keep up with the kids and she stated “All you do is pull the vacuum out of the closet when the door rings and say “Oh, I was just cleaning the house!” Then her husband, my husband’s boss, leans over and says, “Yeah, most of the dust in our house can be measured with carbon dating.”
This has always been an issue at our house- orderliness, vs. cleanliness vs. happiness… and we broke down recently and we have someone come to help. Her standards are much higher than mine, it inspires me to keep myself a bit more organized, and I don’t feel resentful of everyone else “making more work” for me. It’s removed a lot of stress, and the house is reasonably presentable most of the time. I feel guilty that I can’t do it all myself, but recognizing that housekeeping is not my unique talent and giving up some control to someone who has these skills in droves is making us all a bit happier, every other week, at least.
Megin Hatch // Jan 18, 2007 at 1:26 pm
“House keeping isn’t my unique talent”
Well said.
I agree with Lara: I think we all just need to let go of the ideas we have in our head and the fear of judgment. Stop apologizing and for Pete’s sake stop judging.
Our house is working on organization. It’s an important skill to have and to pass on, but if you get backed up on laundry or vacuuming, so be it. It is not the end all be all.
That being said, if we weren’t bare bones-ing it with our budget I would DEFINITELY have someone come in twice a month to capture dust bunnies!
Annie // Jan 18, 2007 at 4:44 pm
Yup, I’m one of those moms with toys all over the place…*blush*
I used to be one of those cleaning fanatics, but since it just seems to get messy again, I just make sure no one trips over anything. LOL. I save the really heavy cleaning for the weekends when I can draft (shanghai?) some help.
Salvina // Jan 19, 2007 at 1:50 am
with 3 boys at home, I’d rather have a messy, happy, noisy home than a place where kids are not allowed to jump on the couch or have friends to play……;-)
An Ordinary Mom // Jan 19, 2007 at 6:36 am
I love your analogy and it can apply to so many other things as well.
Thanks for the reminder to enjoy this journey in life we have been given - that is what is most important.
Becky // Jan 19, 2007 at 9:32 pm
I never have been a great housekeeper. And, it is something I have to keep working on to improve. But, my home is a happy home and that is most important to me! I loved this article, Lara!
Kimberly Moran // Feb 11, 2007 at 1:35 am
I suffer from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and have been killing myself to achieve a “Perfectly Clean House” for years.
I have enjoyed your article about obsessing about clean. It gave me confidence and a reminder that it IS a problem to not accept that less than perfect is ok.
The thoughts of cleaning still drive me crazy!
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