That’s Sorry-Ass Tiny Little First-World Problem.
You know, like “This latte is too foamy!” or “My favorite massage therapist is moving to Tennessee!” (That one’s actually true of me. She was a member of the church and she did it for free/reduced. Sob!)
OK, so this is a rant, not a cry for help. Bear that in mind, and respond (or don’t) accordingly.
R and I get into this overwhelmed funk every few months. You know, where the paperwork and the mess and the little niggling crap pile up and threaten to devour us whole, and it drives us bonkers for a few days. It wasn’t so bad BC (Before C), but it’s really nasty, um, AD (After Daughter). We get into this frantic mood for a few days and feel like we will never, ever, ever catch up, or even just get to a place where things hum along.
…I pass by light bulbs that have been burned out for a couple of months, and I know I won’t get to them until I’m literally in the dark, stubbing my toe on things.
…On my way to the washing machine I have to suck in my gut to get past the mountain of cardboard recycling that’s been there for the better part of a year.
…R bartered with one of his clients, trading computer consulting for some simple, affordable interior design tips. Our dining room is littered with bolts of cloth for curtains, a couple of wall hangings, and paint chips… and you might as well hermetically seal the room for all the work we will do on any of those things in the near future.
…Both of our cars have major scratches and dings on them. The body work has not been a priority, but I cringe every time I go out to the garage. Why don’t we just put them up on blocks in the yard.
…That spiky plant along the front walkway? This big stalk thing shot out of it one day a couple weeks ago. I discovered it when it brushed against my car as I was backing out of the driveway. Then it bloomed white flowers. Now the stalk is drooping over a wilting pile of blossoms on the sidewalk. Golly, do you think we should trim it, hmmm?
The big stuff gets done. Our house is sanitary. Basically. And our bills get paid on time. Mostly. It’s the little, annoying, never-ending stuff that drives me around the bend.
Look, I know you are never truly caught up. That’s an illusion. You vacuum the carpets, and the kitty pukes a hairball. You pay the bills and new ones arrive. You get every stitch of clothing washed, but there’s still the clothes you have on—unless you’re hoisting laundry baskets in your altogether, and even I’m not that obsessive. The parade of tasks plods on, world without end. I get that.
But here’s the thing. Hmm. I need a well-chosen movie quote here. Take it away, Crash Davis:
- Your shower shoes have fungus on them. You’ll never make it to the bigs with fungus on your shower shoes. Think classy, you’ll be classy. If you win 20 in the show, you can let the fungus grow back and the press’ll think you’re colorful. Until you win 20 in the show, however, it means you’re a slob.
–Crash Davis, Bull Durham
We are so far from the major leagues. We work, we spend time with our kid, our one kid, and that’s it. We have no extravagant hobbies, no exotic weekend excursions. And yet we still have a million unfinished projects, taunting us at every turn. It’s one thing to live an abundant, colorful existence, and let the everyday stuff go. That’s eccentric. That’s major league. That’s the stuff of mother’s magazines, those chirpy articles that talk about how crazy life gets, and the stopgap measures are always so cute, like “We ate potato chips and Oreos for dinner!” rather than “We lost track of a couple bills and got a big angry notice from a collection agency, ho ho ho!”
No, we’re in the bush leagues with fungus on our shower shoes.
I don’t need perfection, I would just like one area of our life that’s effortless, that sorta sings, in its own way. Like our disastrous lawn care is legendary, but we cook well-balanced organic meals from scratch. Or we never get around to painting the ugly white walls that the previous occupant patched with mismatched eggshell paint, but we get rid of all the junk we don’t have a place for. Or the laundry goes directly from basket to body (do not pass closet, do not collect $200), but we go hiking each Saturday morning. You know?
You do know, don’t you? Tell me you know. Because sometimes I wonder if we’re the only folks who get into these cycles of entropy—not the precious kind, but the real, gritty degradation of matter and energy, the disturbing trend to utter disorder. In the midst of the overwhelmed funk we sometimes feel, and especially in this high-achieving, appearance-oriented neck of the woods we live in, it often seems like everyone has got their shit together but us.
30 Responses to “SATLFWP”
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Asides
» I have been remiss in posting SBJ’s latest stats: 23 pounds and 27 inches at six months. Yes, I’ve got the big mama biceps.
» Aaaaaand little she-who-is lost another tooth this week!
» SBJ is four months old, 19 pounds 5 ounces, and 26 inches tall. GIGANTOR!
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RM writes “it often seems like everyone has got their shit together but us.”
I very seldom (if ever) have told any of my children that they are WRONG, but you *so* are, my dear.
Every time I see my sweet C and the excitement in her eyes when her mom or her dad enter the room, I’m convinced more than ever that what you do is more valuable than what you don’t do.
Hello! I was kind of “internet-less” last week and out of town (in Houston) this past weekend, so I am finally getting caught up with all of these blog entries I missed.
I agree with Mamala totally!
Of course, you might try this… sell most of your belongings (i.e. furniture, excess clothes that in all honesty will never fit again, excess toys that the kids never really play with, excess everything else that clutters up our lives) and own only what you can carry around in an RV. It is VERY liberating.
And be careful not to break that little toe of yours when you are walking around without the lights!!
I’m on summer vacation right now and the list of stuff to do just seems to get longer and longer and longer. If I didn’t have summer even less of it would get done!! I totally hear you on this too. When it gets tough, make a list and get at least 3 of the things on it done, not the GIANT ones but a few small ones, it really does help to be able to check at least a few of them off.
And heck, when you start nesting, you’ll get the rest of the stuff done, right?!? (I never did nest, when I was pregnant with LB)
RM, I think most of our society is held hostage by the “Leave it to Beaver” fantasy. When I lived in a five-room apartment, we used to shove everything into my bedroom when company came over, and by everything, I mean the unfolded laundry, the books and papers littering every surface, the uncategorized “stuff” of life on top of bookcases and piano, and I would say to myself, “It’s just because our space is so small. We don’t have anyplace to put it all away, with two young kids in a five-room apartment.” Well, now I live in a nine-room, 1.5 bath home, with a basement and attic space and a garage, and when we had the family over for the The Princess’ birthday, where did all the extra crap go? My bedroom.
Here’s the truth: keeping a house “just so” is a fulltime job. And in a home where both parents work outside the home, it just means there is an extra job for everyone to do. I’m sure you will agree that the hours do not add up to allow for sleep or any sort of inner life. And I am firmly convinced that the latter is what suffers (or does not exist) when too much attention is paid to the outer life.
My beautiful new kitchen lights, the ones that point like little spotlights? Starting to burn out, one at a time. Do I know the name of the special lightbulbs, so that I can send Pure Luck to the hardware store for them? No. Someone is going to have to go down there *with* a burnt out bulb and ask for help. (Believe me, it won’t be him if it includes asking for directions.) So please know that you are not alone. It’s not dark in the kitchen…yet.
I don’t know what I’d do without posts like this one. You are describing how we all live. Our homes are homes not store displays or show houses. No one lives like June Cleaver anymore unless they are deeply medicated and/or have no interior life.
You are doing fine. You are doing great.
What really gets me is how negatively reinforcing this kind of cycle can be. It seems healthy to be able to say no to the tyranny of needing to have an orderly/clean house, but even when you say no for a good reason it is depressing to return to the ‘reality.’ And few things seem more real on a day to day basis than the fact that things will never be well-ordered. As soon as the dishwasher is loaded and running, there will be a new dish dirtied or a dirty dish discovered.
My parents lived between two retired neighbors who spent many hours creating beautiful yards and homes. In the meantime my parents were raising five children. I remember one time when my mother was pushing me on the swing set and “Ken” one of the neighbors came over to visit as he was talking with her pointed oblong dirt spot which was the place where our feet dragged as we swung. He said, “I guess you are going to have to plant grass in those spots.” My very orderly tidy,nad orderly mother, look him in the eye and said, “Ken , I will grow grass when I stop growing children!” Her comment meant more to me than all the tidiness in the world!
OK how come I cannot edit my last comment? Please forgive the lack of proofing but somehow I cannot get back to it ARGH!
Oh, thank you! This is my life as well! I have one child, one husband, no pets, and one job. I have a clean house, but I still cringe when people come over unannounced because there’s just stuff everywhere. The garden needs weeding (and garden is a strong word for the three scraggly bushes and half-dozen dying petunias), the laundry piles higher and higher on top of the dryer (I shove it in a basket when it approaches the status of Fire Hazard), the pantry is an unorganized mess, the pile of “to be ironed” gets reduced by one shirt and one pair of pants a day and no more, and I have grand plans for getting rid of a ton of junk but just never can seem to get around to putting an ad on the freecycle site.
I am SO glad I’m not the only one.
Hmmm… Personally I don’t think anyone has their shit together. It just manifests itself in housework with some of us. I’ll never forget the little girl down the street who would come over and play with my girls — she loved our house b/c I would let them get into anything they wanted to as long as it didn’t involve knives or open flames. Craft projects, baby powder fights on the deck, sand sculptures with glue and sand and shells — whatever. When my girls went to their house, they got yelled at when they didn’t “sit still and be quiet.” Yes, the house was/is a wreak. But the kids can be kids (as long as it does not involve knives or open flame).
anyway — we’re going to grow mold today. They want to get a jelly medium set up and cough on it and watch the mold grow. And then draw pictures of it. Will the house be clean? No. Will the kids be happy and challenged? Yes. And which is important?
There was the time when I had a 2 year old and a 5 year old that I saw my retired neighbor with the perfect yard out in our back yard weeding, cutting bushes and it made me mad. There were the times my mother or mother-in-law visited and wiped up places that I never touched, like the place behind the faucets on the sink and sometimes it felt like a violation of my life-style! We have all been there! As wise people have always said, no one ever wishes when they look back on their life that they wished that they had had a cleaner house, a weeded yard, or perfect cars. It has to do with relationships, family and feeling like one makes an positive impact on hurts in this world as one looks back on their life.
I’m sorry, I tried to get to my computer to write a more long winded response, but I slipped on the pile of winter laundry at the base of my stairs and then knocked over the pile of magazines awaiting “clipping” of recipes and sermon-worthy anecdotes, my over-ample ass finally coming to rest on top of the newspaper recycling that i snow so high I can use it as a computer stand.
(P.S. I’m back…more to follow.)
P.S. I disappear for a month and they take away the edit function?…”i snow” should of course be “is now.” This lost tool seally rucks.
I guess it reveals the depths of the problem that I’m sitting here wondering how many of your houses really qualify as “super-models” and even the super-models can’t live with the way they look. I’ve met a woman whose house was immaculate but couldn’t sit still because she saw it as messy (almost like an anorexic but the body is the house). I couldn’t imagine inviting her over because I figured she’d freak if she saw how this other half lives.
Why do we want to find fault with ourselves? Why do we hold onto ideals that do not serve well-being? Is it just magical thinking — if there’s something wrong maybe I can fix it and make Everything ok?
Kenny!!!!!!! We loooooooove you!!!!!!!!! Bring back edits!
Blogging is like sending out a message in a bottle. “Woke up this morning and can’t believe what I saw, hundred million bottles washed upon the shore.”
Mr. Cloudy, re: returning to “reality”: that’s the paradox of vacation. Coming back rested and happy, yet also being faced with all the regular junk, plus the stuff left in disarray while you were getting ready to leave.
Katieg, it’s sorely tempting sometimes!
Welcome Red Diana! And welcome back ChicagoRev!
It’s a thought, Rev Mommy. Although the point is that there *aren’t* adorable art messes going on here–we’re basically existing. Letting the house go to pot, yet being a haven for the neighborhood kids, cooking creative and stimulating art and science projects for them–that’s sorta along the lines of the women’s magazine example I gave in my post.
I have no idea what you’re talking about. That was NOT me you say spraying febreeze on my clothes this morning so I’d have something to wear to work. That was NOT me buying underwear at Target because I can’t find my laundry card. That was NOT me eating soup in an empty pickle jar because I forgot to buy dish detergent and all my dishes are dirty. And those are SO not hairballs on my rug. Not me. not me. not me. You guys should totally follow my example.
To answer your question: I know, I know, boy do I know! I’m dealing with a full bucketload of human tragedy this week (other people’s) , and I just can’t seem to give a shit if the laundry gets done, but, come Friday…I’m gonna care!
Our house? Just like it, probably worse. I used to care, and at times, I still do. If we get SFW through all his stuff every week, manage to get to work, and eat at home more often than not, it’s been a good week. You’re doing great.
And, all in all, I’d rather read a book than clean, unless the in-laws are coming over…
Songbird, for me it goes in this order…
1. Read a book.
2. Watch BBC America (except for Benny Hill)
3. Watch Lifetime or Bravo or my latest Netflix movie.
4. Clean.
This is a test to see whether the edit feature has indeed returned over here and not just randomly at ChicagoRev’s.
[Edit] And it has! Ke-nny! Ke-nny! Ke-nny!
Whenever you need to feel that there are those out there with less ability to cope than you, just tune in Clean Sweep on The Learning Channel. They have folks there who literally can’t walk through the rooms in their house because they are piled so high with junk! It sure beats therapy or being hard on yourself!
Ah, the Clean Sweep team. I love the way they encourage people to let go of the past! But I’d like to see them try it in the South, in a house where more than one generation of the same family has lived, instead of in California in relatively new construction. *That* would be a challenge!
I don’t recall any Commandments about having an uncluttered house. (Or even any Biblical passages.) Clutter shows that you have more important things to occupy yourself with than superficial stuff that impresses neighbors. People who don’t like clutter should stay away. And isn’t it easier to find things that are more or less in sight than if they were hidden in one of many highly organized closets?
Here’s the thing: Our house is always a complete disaster (we can *never* see the surface of our coffee table; I try to find it once every couple of weeks, but then it’s gone again within an hour), and we don’t have kids. Just two adults and a cat. So I read your post and the comments, and so many folks say, “Our house is messy because we’re spending quality time with our kids.” But I don’t have that excuse! Our house is messy because D. and I are messy; nothing noble about it at all. Does that make you feel better at all about the state of your house?
You guys rock like a big rocking thing with a strong proclivity toward rocking.
I realize the more I think about this post that it’s not just about the house. I didn’t *even* get into whole areas of life, like fitness/health. Do you have any idea how long it’s been since I’ve been to the dentist or optometrist?
On the other hand, I went to the girly doctor just two weeks ago. But still.
I was thinking about this just the other day….when is it justifiable to be imperfect in one area of my life….is it only when I am excelling in another?
Why is it OK to say I haven’t gotten to redecorating the room that has been emptied out for a year when that year included some “great” accomplishment, but it isn’t OK to have an empty undecorated room and no accomplishment more than having just lived another year.
And then I think and remember the moments of choice. The choice to use my day off to catch up on sleep so that I am more pleasant to live around, the choice to sew a graduation dress that is what she really really wants, the choice to just sit and be, the choice to read etc etc etc…..
I can’t see these things a year later like I would be able to see the room redone, but I can feel them.
re: ChicagoRev post #2: I’m impressed that you have clean as #4! I’m not sure “clean” is even in my top 10 (and HGTV’s Mission Organization is theraputic like Clean Sweep.)
My tiny apartment with just me, no kids, no pets, not even live plants, is constantly in a state of disorder. I get one room relatively straight and let the other rooms go. Then I flip-flop. And the worst thing is, there is no place for me to go to get away from any of it! I get so overwhelmed that I don’t even attempt to put anything away - I just dump things wherever there’s carpet showing.
The thing is, my classroom is perfect. If the custodial staff actually cleaned the room (I don’t consider taking out the trash, sweeping dirt around the room, and vacuuming actual cleaning) my room would be immaculate. People who stop by my room after school almost always remark about how clean and bright and organized it looks. (Okay, the kids do stuff like dust and mop and straigthen books right before school is out. Being the “Swiffer” - preferably with the wet cloth - is a coveted job.)
Hmmmm. Professional life: perfectly ordered. Personal life: lazy, messy, pull-the-covers-over-your-head disordered. Hmmmm.
Sherry, you have totally hit upon it.
The author Sark has a thing about Radical Self-Acceptance. I find it liberating, when I remember to practice it. (Ironically, RSA makes me more motivated to make changes for the better.)
Great discussion, y’all.
You just said EXACTLY what I feel - only better than I ever could have said it. Amen, Sister!