Clean Freak

I just cleaned my bathtub. Twice.

It was gross. Pretty sure we had botulism growing in there– had I been smarter, I would have long ago harvested that stuff and completely funded our adoption with all natural, home-spun Botox injections. Hashtag, hindsight.

I’ve inflated the state of things a bit. It wasn’t that gross. I’m an undisputed, recovering clean freak. (The first step is admitting you have a problem.)

I’m the friend you call when you want to deep clean or organize your house, when you want to gut your bonus room or clean out your garage. I try to channel my idiosyncrasy for good.

When people compliment me on my clean home, I wince. I have worked hard to let go of being the mom who has to have an immaculate house, to the detriment of her children. It was a tough learning curve for me. If my house is too clean it might be an indication that I’ve lost ground in my constant battle with this compulsion.

Currently, my peculiarities are compounded with the primal urge to nest. It’s unavoidable. This time, however, I’m going to do it right. I’m cleaning now not so that my child will come home to a perfect house (Well, maybe a little bit– we will have a baby on the ground again for the first time in five years, afterall.), but more so that I won’t have to clean for a good long while after we arrive back home. I’m gonna listen to Queen Elsa and “let it go.”

I’m older wiser now, and will strive to heed the advice of this poem, shared many times with me throughout my active mothering years:

“The cleaning and scrubbing can wait for tomorrow

But children grow up, I’ve learned to my sorrow. 

So settle down cobwebs; Dust go to sleep!

I’m rocking my baby and babies don’t keep.”

-Ruth Hulburt Hamilton

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