One of the things that makes me most unhappy is my organization, or lack thereof. I always feel like such a failure because my life is always a mess.
Yesterday and today I spent all day off and on trying to make progress. I worked on laundry for HOURS, wiped up the kitchen counters several times, swept the floor probably 5 times. Picked up my daughter's room another 5 times. I'm still not getting anywhere. Everything is still a mess. I have pretty much given up on keeping floors clean. I go through a long process of picking up and shaking out all the rugs and the high chair cover. I get the counter tops cleaned off, the highchair free of food, get my hot soapy water ready and spend an hour on the floor. They are dirty an hour later. My daughter is often stuck to me...so it's sometimes not until hours after dinner before I get to cleaning the kitchen. By then Cheerios or Spaghetti-O's are cemented to the floor. Or I get all the rugs shook out and set them aside then never get to mopping. Then my rugs sit in a pile for the next week until I finally wipe everything down again, sweep again, etc.
I don't know how to be any other way and it's starting to freak me out! I am better then I used to be, now that I have a child. But this certainly isn't the way I envisioned life for her. I wanted her to learn from me how to be clean and organized. And I'm failing at being that role model for her.
Another thing with cleaning is guilt. Guilt over cleaning? Uh...yes. If you are full-time working single parent with no family around to help, every second you have with your child is precious. And when I'm cleaning and organizing, I'm not really spending time with her. She's there and hanging around, but my mind is elsewhere. Sometimes the only reason I do clean is because the hours alone with a baby go by so slow for me. Then I feel guilty because I'd rather clean then sing patty cake one more time.
My brain is such a jumble of guilt and worry these days, that I know the only way to sort through some of that is to continuously do something productive, because half the noise in my head is me telling reminding myself that I need to do this and that. Some of that clutter remains in my head for weeks, sometimes months! And if I'd continue to be productive around the house, I know I would be much, much happier in a clean and organized environment.
Back in my mid-20's, I went through an 8-month phase where life was PERFECT. Well, not perfect, but I was exactly where I wanted to be...and very much where I'd like to be now as far as mentally. I had just overcome a disastrous time in my life. I had dated an utter loser who was a severe alcoholic. He didn't help pay rent and I got evicted. I moved in with 4 roommates. I am not the roommate type. I finally found a cute little place in the best part of the ghetto. I LOVED that apartment. It was adorable. It was the 2nd story of a house built in 1951. The beautiful woodwork had been painted over, but the landlord had painted the walls cream and the trim beige, so it looked nice. It was a long and narrow place, with a large kitchen (although NO counter space), a middle room, a tiny bedroom and a living room, joined in that order. There was a narrow bathroom off the kitchen that had a clawfoot tub - heaven for me, as I adore taking baths. But the living room was my favorite. It was not a large room, but it was ample for a couch, loveseat, coffee table and entertainment center. The middle room made up for the lack of space in the living room. There was a large, square walk-in closet in the living room, which I actually used for my clothes, since the bedroom closet was tiny.
But best of all were the windows and the porch. On one wall was two standard-sized living room windows. Another wall had the same...but on the other side of THOSE windows was the porch. Fourteen windows all lined up in a row gave me lots of sunlight in the house and a great view overlooking the street below. The door out to the porch was paned glass, which gave the whole place a little charm and let in even more light. The porch was about 7 feet wide and 20 feet long. The wood floor was painted grey. I found some old end tables someone gave away for free, painted them white and placed them in the porch along with some resin chairs and a mauve and green flowered runner rug. I put up plant hooks and hung hanging baskets of impatiens and petunia's in summer. It was like a little extra room during warm weather.
The reason I described the place in such detail was because I have the best memories there. I would come home, clean everything up, THEN sit down with a bottle of wine and a movie or a book and relax in pure satisfaction in my clean and organized house. Despite the tiny bedroom, the lack of storage, the kitchen with no no cupboards or counter space (albeit an awesome pantry!), I just loved my life there. I loved my porch, my clawfoot tub, my pantry, my neighbors and because I loved those little things, I was ultra content. I often think about that place and that time in my life and try to remember how I felt and how I was able to get my mind so strong. I try to use it as a compass for this difficult season of my life, but maybe I am reading it wrong. I'm puzzled as to why I'm so lost on this journey, why I can't or won't take the right roads that will lead me back to that happiness. Why do we set up roadblocks for ourselves? Why do we fear what we know we are capable of? Is there a certain comfort of staying in the familiarity of a situation, even when it is not the situation we want? I have many questions in my heart that I have never been able to answer. I have thought about them for years. Maybe there is no answer, except action.
Action takes motivation. I don't have much of that these days. I've been asking myself how I can find it within me for a long, long time now. Perhaps it's time to seek it out instead of calling it's name and hoping it will come to find me again.
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