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I make a lousy wife
September 13, 2006 | Category: In My Life
It has been CD's complaint since I left my job that I don't clean enough.
When I worked, we had Elia here every day. And Elia? Is a clean freak. God love her. Each night, I would exit my little office to see the tidy floors and hear the hum of the dishwasher.
It took a LOT of stress off a stressful few years to have Elia around. Because I am NOT exactly Lady Tidy and CD? Good Lord. CD is a living PigPen.
My messiness comes with 3 scoops of guilt. My old-fashioned Yankee parents drilled into me from the youngest age that a messy house is a sin.
His cleaning dysfunction comes with a strange sort of blindness. He can't even see the chaotic mess that erupts in his wake. He just knows that when he comes home from work that the Mess is here, waving to him cheerfully as it snacks on Lorna Doones.
So his first, terror-stricken, thought when I left my job and Elia left us was... WHO IS GOING TO CLEAN?!
(With a beady glance that said 'And it better be YOU'.)
There were negotiations, there were discussions. Jimmy Carter visited and facilitated a treaty. The UN sent in troops to enforce the terms.
And yet. Our house is a bloody wreck.
In the past 6 months, I have attempted to maintain a 50%-and-no-more policy with a don't-mess-don't-clean codicil.
But mostly? I haven't written.
(What? You didn't notice?)
I lost a gig that 6 months ago I could have whipped out without a sweat. I have sat, impotent, at my keyboard.
Lost.
In a messy house.
Conflicted, unable to concentrate. Trying to put up blinders so I won't be distracted by laundry that needs folding, toys that need tidying, trash that needs binning.
Feeling waves of guilt like a fever, because how dare I take time for this? How DARE I - without Elia to clean and mind Bear - lock myself in my mind and my words?
Last night, CD said - 'You are Depressed! You need therapy!'
I gave him a blank, dead-fish kind of a look. A little bubble over my head with the word "huh?" in it.
'If you weren't,' he told me, 'the house would be clean!'
See, when all you got is a hammer - then every problem is a nail. Believe you me.
I've been to psychiatrists, therapists, neurologists, and my GP. You know what they say? That I am going through a major shift in life, that I need to sleep more, that I would benefit from having a counselor to help me wade through my choices and my direction, and that I should work out 3 times a week and take fish pills.
I sigh.
He said, 'I'm tired of coming home and the house isn't any cleaner than when I left and you expect me to clean AND watch Bear while you..."
It took a whole night and this morning for my fuse to finally reach the TNT that is the deepest part of my brain. If his cell phone was made of a flammable material, it would have exploded in hs hand - leaving him with smoking eyebrows and a shocked expression.
I'm rolling up the damn doormat, and I'm declaring independance.
I can't live like this anymore.
I left my job for many reasons, good ones.
And none of them included becoming a better maid.
I can't let my indecision wreck me anymore. Sure it sounds specious - unwashed dishes doesn't equal writer's block.... right?
But in my case, it has.
Like a blogger I once loved, I'm not Donna Reed.
I have to put those expectations away. And I have to refuse to let anyone else put them on me.
It is time to lay down the guilt. Gently. And then kick it smosh it burn it with that crappy incense leftover from my college days.
If you love me, you want me to be happy. You want me to write, because I am a writer. Maybe not a very good one - but it is in my DNA, this compulsion. You want to hear the tapetty of the keyboard more than the hum of the dishwasher. You understand that my sanity and my bliss comes from this.
And maybe it isn't fair to say all this aloud, on a blog visible from space.
But I needed to say it.
Finally.
And screw the house.
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