When I lived with my father, I wasn’t allowed to clean.
To clarify: I wasn’t allow to make a mess; I wasn’t allowed to touch any mess that my father had created. Ultimately, my neurotic need to have things in order, precisely filed and straightened was punishable by manner of corporal and emotional abuse. Well, just about anything was, but you know how it goes…
Since I had a little bit of space to call my own, after the age of nine or so, I compulsively cleaned my bedroom. I segmented what toys and books went where, and moved the furniture around as frequently as I could without fear of wrath for potential wall dents.
Once I moved out to my own place, it was worse for me because now I controlled the entire environment and anything out of place was testament to how erratic my mind was. To hide the scattered thoughts and instability, I cleaned and polished, wiped and laundered. More rules developed for cleaning, like my previously blogged bathtub cleaning ritual, and managing a home became something to do when I was up late at night.
It wasn’t too rare to find me at three am, scrubbing grout with a toothbrush.
When I started working full time in administration jobs, this came in handy. My desk was always spotless, my files colour-coded and up-to-date, and my work prioritized in similarly colour-wielding splendour. I got the job done, and it looked good while I was doing it.
Enter motherhood and my ability to cope fell fast, quickly, because there was no grand filing system, and I couldn’t stay up until whenever, assured that I would have uninterrupted cleaning time. I couldn’t put down my daughter to wash dishes for the first nine months of her life, never mind file the bills that were being continually paid late. I couldn’t micromanage motherhood, because with the exception of the efforts her father put out, it was all on me, 24/7.
I started to fantasize more often about a life of less stuff. About minimalism as a means to have less to stuff to control, instead of letting go of the need to control anything, period. I became hopelessly hooked on interior decorating books and magazines, and Real Simple became my bible.
Funnily, I didn’t have the time or mental energy to handle any of the tips and tricks they were throwing down.
Now, I have more time, but I also have a new awareness of how much ADD effects me. Peel off a layer from this mental onion, and find another, I guess. And I started, really committed initially, to sticking to a strict schedule.
It was a glorious week, when I got everything done that I needed to, and I spent quality time with Zoë for the hell of it, not because she was demanding it or I felt she was owed it. Then I overbooked my work-week and promptly feel off of that wagon hard.
Now, here I am, back at overwhelmed with the checklist of things to be done, and realizing that yes, I do need that schedule and god, if only life could be like my jobs used to, I could manage every damn aspect of it, down to the font size on the label of ’story before bedtime’.
Life isn’t like that, and motherhood sure as hell ain’t, either. So what do I do?
I admit that I need something to micromanage me, maybe. I get back on the routine, as soon as possible… tomorrow. I start eating better and treating my body better and respecting myself more for all that I can and do accomplish.
Most of all, I choose to remember every day, starting today, while I look at the furniture that I’d like to move, or the tiles in the bathroom that scream for a thorough scrub, that I have something more important to do: not micromanage my daughter into time slots.
Not afford her a specific 30 minutes between the laundry switch and the dishes on Wednesday afternoon, even though both need to be done in a timely manner. Bake with her on a day other that the Sunday I’ve scheduled on the calendar. Instead of answering emails, lay in bed with her after breakfast even though the dishes are still on the table, reading page after page of Alice in Wonderland.
Despite the fact that she’ll never give me a promotion or a raise – or ever start paying me in much more than hugs that manage to shut off my airpipe and kisses that involve a way-too-open mouth – I’ve nearly always looked at motherhood as a job to do strive to do well, to keep clean and tidy, without major errors or misfilings.
Really, I should have seen this life for what it has the ability to be: medicine.
This post was inspired by the book Just Let Me Lie Down by Real Simple Editor Kristen van Ogtrop, and was written as part of the Silicon Valley Moms Group book club. You can join in here. Completely unnecessary (legally) disclosure: I received a free copy of the book as part of the Book Club.
