Thursday, November 17, 2011

Today's Rant: Cleaning House


Here's what I hear, everywhere I go.  “My house is so dirty, I have to clean it all the time, I hate it, sorry, the place is a mess, blah blah blah.”  Ladies and gentlemen, please.  Seriously?   Enough.

Here’s the thing about cleaning:  No one likes to do it.  Except for a chosen few, who have a clinically diagnosed condition called Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.  And in their case, they *like* to clean, so no problem there.  In fact, I’m thinking of hosting an OCD support group so that bitches will freak out at the mess when they come over and start cleaning the fuck out of my house.

"It didn't get up and walk away, now did it?"
I love the idea of a clean house.  Once in a while I get “the cleanies.”  This is a what my husband calls “putting bipolar disorder to good use.”  But even as revved up as I get, eventually I have to stop and things get dirty and messy again PDQ.   It’s called “entropy.”  It’s a thang.  My hubs told me about it.  He’s a rocket scientist.  F’rills.

But I cannot stand the chaos.  Every horizontal surface in this house is piled with it.  I come in the front door and the clutter jumps on my back and pushes me down to the floor.  The chaos in my head is reflected and amplified by the clutter in my house.  What's in this pile?   Is this a bill?  Where is the IRS letter, the grad night flyer, the doctor's note, the Groupon, the love letter?   The de-cluttering books (and yes, people, this is a genre) all say to start small.  Choose one tiny place and make order there.  Use that success to move on to the next project.  So now I have a house full of clutter with one drawer of Legos arranged in rainbow order.  

One way I have learned to handle it is this:  I treat my home like a public space.  I go through the house and gather up all the shit that belongs to me.   The stuff I need.  The stuff I'm responsible for.   Then I stack all the rest of it at the end of the table and let the rest of them figure it out.  Nice metaphor, huh?

My husband has on occasion suggested that a housekeeper might not be a bad idea.  It’s a horrible idea.  For one thing, we certainly can’t afford it.  And if we could, I still wouldn’t because I could buy a lot of great wine and even more not-so-great wine with that same money.  In any case, it's a good thing I can't afford a cleaning lady because it would make me crazy that my house was messy.  I don’t think I’d actually *clean* before she came, but doubtless I would *have* to straighten up.  And I'd probably follow her around while she was here.  Who knows what kinds of things are lying in wait to embarrass me?   How do you say "dildo" in Spanish?   It won't matter.

My daughter, a very wise and together young woman, overheard me apologizing to someone about how messy my house was.  (I know, right?  Apologizing.)  Afterward, she said to me, "Mom, look around.  Many intelligent and fascinating people live in this small space.  We are all interested in lots of things. Cleaning doesn’t happen to be one of them.  You are a bright and capable woman.  If you wanted it clean, you would clean it.  Move on." 

[She’s sixteen.  I have to keep reminding myself that they come through us, not from us.   But I want the credit for that one right there.]

Of course she is right.

My point is that housecleaning is a hugely divisive and counter-productive issue for women.  (And let’s set aside the whole gender issue of who *does* the housework.  One rant at at time.)  It’s just one more basically meaningless thing that we waste time measuring and comparing and judging and feeling guilty and helpless and angry about.  Listen to me very carefully.  No one cares about your dirty house.  NO ONE.   So could we all please just  LET IT GO  and get on with more important things?   Like being awesome.  I'll start.

· · · Share · Delete

24 comments:

  1. Yay! You are off and running...and in a good way. This is so so so great and that daughter of yours, pretty amazing. We should live our lives, and not be so concerned, but I hear ya, the clutter gets to a certain point and drives me batty (the live with twins) but that said, lots of interesting people live here and that's the point, now let's get on with the important stuff:)

    ReplyDelete
  2. now the fact that your SIXTEEN year old daughter respects you enough to say that to you is a miracle. I never would have said that shit to my mom. AND, I don't have kids. And I don't clean well. ONly when people are coming over. It's ok to not have a clean house but to have a full heart.

    ReplyDelete
  3. i'm so glad that i'm not the only one who has these exact same thought processes. also: may i please have your daughter follow me around during my daily life to give me words of encouragement and calm? i could certainly use it.

    ReplyDelete
  4. PMSL - Honestly, now there's another puddle to clean, more mess, thanks for that!

    I just read this out to my 18 year old daughter and said "who does this sound like" IT'S ME!!!!

    Friggen funny, and oh so true.

    I've found that by telling people I have five birds, any one of whom will eat your face on impact, tends to keep the visitors at bay. That suits me just fine. I like that, I'd much rather do my socialising outside these four walls where I can listen to what you're saying rather than what you're thinking about my mess or who you're going to bitch to about it! Works for me anyway.

    I'm off to subscribe to your page and post this link on facebook. <3

    Thanks for keeping it real.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I don't have a dirty house, but I admittedly HAD a cluttered house. I hate bare walls, I hate simplistic furniture. I want everything stimulating and interesting. Highly eclectic.

    Well, I had it that way until I married a man who has more than a touch of OCD who is just the opposite. No clutter, very simplistic.

    Now I have strategic hidden piles of things because if I put them away - the whole everything has a place BS - I will forget I own them. I'm short, so anything that ends up above eye-level I will also forget about. So what does the husband do? Puts things "away" and "up high". If I don't see it, I don't own it. It's a bitch.

    Maybe I should introduce him to Howie Mandel's wife.

    "Don't touch the crazy person's stuff, dearie. You'll keep your eyeballs that way. *rawr*"

    At least I never have to personally clean the house....

    ReplyDelete
  6. I feel like we should set up some sort of program, bringing OCD people into messy houses (mine), so they can be thanked for their compulsions (by my husband, because really i don't give a shit if there is dust)....?? Win-win?

    ReplyDelete
  7. I have a cleaning lady. I clean before she comes (that's what I'm doing tonight, in fact)and I *always* apologize to her. I *don't* clean because I like it,- I just have some awful fear that she will, in muttering spanish, judge me as a total f*ck up who is beneath her. And- my house is pretty tidy and clean and ordered for having three young kids running around in it all the time. Save your money! It just makes you feel more incompetent when you don't get to something! ( "I have a cleaning lady here every 7 days...what is WRONG WITH ME that I haven't even swept the floor/ shined the cabinets/ pick your deficit/ today??!" )

    ReplyDelete
  8. You are my new hero. What a fantastic perspective on clean houses. There are also several intelligent and fascinating people here, too. That explains it all. We all have much better things to do than clean!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Did I write that? Just kidding, but it's almost exactly how I feel, too. This house has it's cobwebs and dust bunnies, but why bother? More will appear in days! Why pick up the kid's shoes from the living room? They just put them back in an hour. The only things deemed necessary to clean in a house are the dishes, clothes and people in them. That's MY philosophy. And I really like the idea of inviting a group of OCDers over. Nice!

    ReplyDelete
  10. I just dropped in for the first time and read your blog. To bad your married! :o) I am a stay at home man, and my new girlfriend is very particular about where and how things are placed. Drives me insane!! I work my ass off trying to stay on top of the kitchen, which everyone knows is Grand Central of a house, when am I supposed to have time to dust..dust, really?, then vacuum upstairs and down, laundry. And laundry..that's another day. GEEZZZZZZ!! But I'm a good man trying to fit in, but it appears I am a square peg, trying to find a home in a round hole. Really!!, I have a small bedside table, that is MY SPACE!! In this whole house! She constantly walks by, sifts through my stuff, throwing away my old Tootsie Roll wrappers, you do know they are good for putting chewed gum in right? We housekeepers need Federal subsidy checks for this crap! Love your blog.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Its refreshing to know that there are others out there who are normal. I was just saying that I only deep clean when we are having a party (like tomorrow, so I'm cleaning all day today) or if there is going to be little kids over who are going to put important papers in their mouths. And the manic episodes are the only time I really sort through any of the clutter, normally it's just all over the counter and desk. There's a madness to my methods, and I know where everything is (in a pile) and like it that way.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Couldn't have said it better! So true & on point, as usual Mrs. K.

    ReplyDelete
  13. I'm in the minority here. I clean, I dust, I vacuum the ceilings. It is what I do. It's one of the few things in my chaotic life I can control. I'm not OCD, I cannot settle if things are dirty. Laundry must be done, I get twitchy if there are piles, I enjoy seeing empty hampers. I'm also allergic to 90% of the world, cleaning keeps the world out.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Not a debate--no worries. As long as you don't judge us slobs, we won't judge you neat-freaks, how 'bout that.

      Delete
  14. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And thank you to your brilliant daughter! I actually just paid my younger daughter a butt load of money because she cleaned our apartment to make money for a music event. I try not to apologize for our meesed up abode, but do it all the time. I'm not the only one who lives here and I am certainly not the one who makes the majority of the mess. Anyway, thanks again TKC for keepin' it real. I love your blog!

    ReplyDelete
  15. I really enjoy reading your blog; I am a relative newcomer and rather unsuccessful blogger to date, but the last blog post I did make (back in April, ack) was largely to do with this very topic. This post really resonates with me, but I only wish it were true, in my case, that "nobody cares." I have Dissociative Identify Disorder, Major Depression, and a few other cutesie little things like severe anxiety. It's difficult enough for me, at this point, to perform the basic tasks that most living adult humans must perform (waking up, breathing, perhaps taking a shower, getting myself to my new part-time job when I have to, interacting with a few people); cleaning is not high on my list of priorities, or even on my list of things I'm currently able to do. However, both of my parents, as well as a couple of friends, are constantly informing me that I have to "get my life back together," and they have apparently deduced that one of the key components to being "together" is having a clean house. Therefore, they are constantly criticizing, nagging, suggesting, and prodding me regarding my house. It's gotten to the point where I refuse to allow anyone to come over, or, if I do know someone is going to come over, I go into an anxiety-driven "cleaning frenzy," forsaking sleep for the entire night, just so the house, or the rooms that are likely to be seen, have the superficial appearance of being picked up and "clean." This isn't healthy, makes me resent company (I am too sleep deprived to enjoy it even if I didn't resent it), and makes me feel horrible. It's "shame cleaning." Thank you for taking away at least a little bit of my shame...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's exactly where I'm going. No shame. No blame. Clean or don't clean, it's all good. xo

      Delete
  16. There's too damned much to deal with when you have BPD. It's much easier to lower your standards--worked for me. Cleaning is an exercise in futility anyway (I have dogs and kids). What I do will be undone in short order. Twenty years from now I want my kids to remember that I was there for them and with them. If all they remember is a clean house then I've done something wrong. Love your blog, love your FB page. Love to see that others are having a life with BPD, and that I'm not alone with my crazy.

    ReplyDelete
  17. ...and out of a bipolar disorder comes clarity. Funny how that happens! Wonderful piece of writing.

    What Fresh Hell is This?

    ReplyDelete
  18. This post was genius. Like, your genius just exploded all over the internet. I have to share this shit.

    ReplyDelete
  19. I want to print out the last paragraph of your blog and tack it to my husband's forehead! He's always on me about having the house clean and tidy and how it is my responsibility to have it done, plus dinner for the kids, because I am a stay at home mom. This argument has become so heated and caused so much resentment between us that we are going to marriage counseling because it has almost ended our marriage on numerous occasions. He doesn't seem to understand that it's hard enough for me to take care of my two stepchildren and our 2 1/2 year old son, let alone clean the house. Hell, some days I can barely get off the couch or there are some days that all do is cry and google my medications to find out how much I would need to take in order for them to be lethal. Or days when I have text conversations with my niece where she tells me I should go to the hospital and get help and I tell her that even though I have insurance, getting me cremated would be cheaper than a hospital stay.

    I deal with these thoughts almost every single day, so yeah, cleaning is pretty much the furthest from my mind because all of my time and energy are focused towards basic survival. So when he comes home and expresses his disappointment that the house hasn't been straightened up just makes me feel even more fucked up and shitty about my life.

    Even as I am writing this he is bitching at me to get off the computer to come and help him clean. =/ All I want to do is crawl under my covers with my crazy and cry.

    ReplyDelete
  20. So sane a response to the "clean freaks". Learned late that housework will be there tomorrow, but the sun may only shine today so take advantage of the sun! Your kids only remember the time you spent with them, not the time you spent cleaning. My firstborn and I started to get along when I learned to close her bedroom door to keep the mess inside and not worry about if there was clothes for her to wear. I also let her do her own laundry so I no longer had to enter. Win, win. I love your daughter's response and I may have it framed and hang on my door. I love your blog, please keep up the great work.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Dishes, bathroom, laundry, trash, and ppl, that's what gets cleaned in my house, and considering the rollercoaster bipolar is taking me on right, THAT FUCKING HELLAGOOD!!

    ReplyDelete
  22. Good god, I want to mouth kiss you right now! Clean or don't clean, but stop bitching and moaning about it. Love the suggestion of inviting the OCD friends over, or just accept the chaos and let shit lie as it may. And no housekeeper is worth the cost of lost wine. On a somewhat related note I had a friend that would not fire her housekeeper, because she felt badly, even though the housekeeper WAS BLIND (her husband would come and tell her where to clearn....) and she would also take naps in her bed. Odd.

    ReplyDelete