Submitted by megan on Thu, 10/01/2009 - 21:44
I've developed a new nightly routine that I'm finding very satisfying. I make sure the kettle is filled with enough water for coffee. I measure out my oats and currants, I fill the pot with enough water to cook them. I wash the dishes so that when I come down in the morning the counters are cleared and pleasing.
You wouldn't know this from looking at my house now, but when I was a kid I used to get in so. much. trouble. for being messy. Everything in my room was everywhere, all the time.
My dad, who was an angry man and a yeller, would go on rampages every once in a while. Why was everything always on the floor? It was his house, why did we always make everything a mess? Why couldn't we put anything away?
The pattern went like this:
- Dad would ask us to clean our rooms before he got home. Not nicely.
- I would do other stuff, typically watching TV and reading.
- Mom would say "Your father will be home soon, have you cleaned your room?"
- I would run to my room and shove everything either under the bed, or in the closet, or both.
It's not like there was one time where he forgot to check the bed or the closet, so I don't know why it took me so long to figure out that wasn't going to work.
I'm not entirely sure when that changed.
My bachelor apartment in Toronto had a lot to do with it. That's when I started making my bed every day, because it depressed me and stressed me out to walk into a space where everything was all over the place and all out of sorts.
Oh.
It wasn't the apartment, was it. It was because I moved into that apartment to heal, when my depression and anxiety were at their peak. I made my bed, I folded everything, I lined up all my canned food. Neat neat neat, this here, this here. Some misguided intuition that if I could keep the outside in order, maybe things might be okay.
I wonder how much of that is inherited and how much of that I learned?
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6 comments postedI need thing in my home to be organized for my brain to function properly. I didn't grow up in a particularly clean or organized home so I'm not sure where I got my need for orderliness. Cleaning my house is like cleaning my brain. It is therapeutic.
I was never particularly tidy as a child either but I do remember periodically I would clean my room by taking the broom and sweeping everything on the floor into a giant pile in the middle of the room and then sorting through it. As the pile got smaller and smaller the room got cleaner and cleaner.
Not the most effective way of doing things but...
Now I have a tendency to work from one end of the house to the other cleaning and tiding as I go. It's almost always done when I am feeling stressed and need just one thing to work. And then you have the joy of coming home and everything being neat and tidy.
My mother always said that "Housework is it's own reward". Which could be all saccharine if you didn't know she cleans like I do too. :)
It feels "meant to be" that I read this post this morning. Today is my "cleaning day". Inside AND out. I have a boy coming to see me next weekend from Alberta who I haven't seen in 17 years. Cleaning my house, though necessary anyhow, is definitely one of ways of making him like me more. I'm one of those people who cleans BEFORE a party. And we need to bring in all our summer stuff from outside and get the tulips planted. Darn the rain!!
Your new evening routine is my life. I sometimes wonder if my roomate thinks I'm strange when she sees the teabag in the cup, the spoon out to stir in the milk, the knife out to cut the bagel, and the other knife already out to spread the cream cheese. I may even have my clothes and shoes laid out. But I've noticed I go through phases. Right now, I don't even eat breakfast and I couldn't be bothered to methodically choose what to wear. I just grab whatever is comfy and free before I leave for work.
It was definitely my Mum. Organized and neat and clean to point of (mild?) OCD. A Virgo single mother. Even to this day, I sweetly, meekly ask if I can make toast. "I PROMISE I'll clean everything up Mum!" And if I made my bed or did the vacuuming, she did it over again herself because it just wasn't right for her. So I used to always think it must be genetic or I must have learned it all. I would say to myself "I like it, it's the best way to live". But I'm not sure I agree with that theory anymore. Learned maybe, yes, but continually practiced out of fear. If my house, closet, kitchen, to do list was in order, my life would be order and people would like me (my mother would like me) and I would be PERFECT all the time. It's very tiring, and yes, depressing at times.
So I've been trying to break free of the perfectionism. The organization. The idea that my procrastination "makes me just like my father". Once in awhile, when I'm conscious of it, I purposely throw my sweatshirt on the floor before getting into bed and feel giggly. Sometimes the sweatshirt (my mother's voice) wins, and I get up and fold it then return my cozy reading. Regardless, I'm happy I'm aware of it all and usually don't get down. But I can assure you, if my Mum came to visit, I'd hire militant cleaners to make the place look nice!!
Thanks Megan! Your post and my reply has been therapeutic for ME this morning!
Anon: Totally therapeutic. It's very satisfying to see something get done so tangibly, I think.
Elizabeth: Well, if stuff gets done, then I'd say it's pretty effective.
Sarah: I am totally with you on the sweatshirt thing! When I decide not to just leave my clothes in a pile on the floor, it feels so satisfying. A different kind of satisfying than having everything neat.
One of my old bosses, whom (who?) dad also worked for when he was at Rossiter's, used to tell me that sweeping the floor was one of the few jobs in the world where you got immediate results which also made it one the most satisfying jobs.
Oh, and he used to give dad shit for tracking dirt everywhere!
Heh, maybe dad wasn't wearing his slippers.