- They say the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. So, here goes. I am a closet clean freak trapped in a frumpy woman’s body. When people see me they would never suspect. Fresh face, with barely a stitch of make-up except for the massive amount of concealer under my eyes to attempt to cover-up the rut of dark circles permanently residing there after becoming a mother. It can be a little misleading. As you see me sitting there in my yoga pants and tie-dyed pull over, you think I’m “earthy,” like one of those laid back hippie moms, sitting in the candle light, tandem nursing my kids while listening to an old record of whale sounds I recorded on a seaside expedition to combat the mass murder of dolphins by tuna fisherman. You watch as I sit calmly, maintaining a conversation with you while my child turns a back hand spring off the top of the bookcase into a pile of sofa cushions. “Great form” I call out, then ask if you’d like some coffee, never missing a beat. I seem relaxed, confident, calm, cool, collected, as if an unseen commentator will suddenly start describing the qualities of the deodorant I’m wearing in an attempt to mass market my ability to not perspire under pressure. I am relaxed and easy going, most of the time…
- The rest of the time I’m fighting my alter-ego of cleanliness and perfection. Before I had children I kept a meticulous house. I would spend an entire day doing nothing but dusting, sweeping, mopping, etc. I had a glass table for goodness sake, and I would weekly remove each pane, cleaning both sides with windex, and there wasn’t even anyone present to leave fingerprints. I scrubbed baseboards. I washed out the shelves in my refrigerator. I would honestly be the person that came to your house, you people with children, and left saying just shoot me if I ever let my house go like that! I would go into your bathroom and raise an eyebrow at the ring stain in your toilet or the piles of hair in the corners behind the door. I didn’t judge you because of it, I just thought Eww, then I would scrub my hands before I exited, twice, and not use your hand towel. I didn’t like mine getting all wrinkly and wet, so I just assumed you didn’t either. I would go home and scrub my shower lest soap scum had taken over in my absence.
- Bad news friends. That crazy woman is still in here somewhere. I’ve been going to rehab. It’s a nice enough place, run by people under three feet tall who expect me to feed them and get up with them at the most ridiculous hours at night. It’s a crash course kind of thing. You are expected to quit caring about appearances cold turkey, and the only thing they can give you to prevent DT’s are frequent doses of love. Somehow, miraculously, it seems to be enough. After a holiday week of rushing about, I am confronted with a home in disarray, dirty dishes everyone, piles of laundry falling off the couch, and little people jumping into the pile with glee. There’s toys positioned haphazardly throughout the rooms, blocks and tiny dolls with cruelly outstretched arms waiting to trip and pierce an unguarded footfall. I have a moment where the anarchy of crusted pots and pans, the disorder of wet towels on the floor, the chaos of couch pillows thrown about threaten to overwhelm me. I catch myself as I almost loose it on my step-daughter for not pushing in her chair, but I shove the clean-freak back down. I go into my room and make my bed to help myself feel better. No matter that it’s eight o’clock at night, the sheets pulled tautly help soothe my tremors, give me some feeling of control over the disastrous war-zone before me. I move some toys into a basket in the living room, fold throw blankets and put them up and off the floor. I push the mound of laundry to only one corner of the couch, and I feel like I can breathe again. Never has there been such a trial of patience and self-control for a compulsive cleaner than living with children. You love them so much that you can’t kill them for disrupting your perfect, clean world. You can’t beat them, so you usually join them, most of the time. But when the trash is overflowing, and you realize one day that your toilet has a ring (Gasp!), it takes an extra 1,2,3, deep breathe. You pick up the Clorox and toilet brush, and give it a little swish, before your fine composure cracks like the dried spaghetti sauce on the third shelf in the refrigerator. It’s an ongoing thing here. My little counselors work with me daily, testing my limits, building my tolerance of mess. They’ve almost cured me. When I try to relapse they’re good to step in with a spilled glass of chocolate milk or doodoo on the beige rug. I’m truly learning not to cry over spilled milk, or poop for that matter.
That is all 🙂
[…] The stockings are no longer hung by the chimney with care. If your house is anything like mine they’re probably strewn all across the place with remnants of half-eaten chocolate Santa Clauses melting in the felt. Although I’ll be honest when I tell you I collected all the candy from ours and placed it into ziplock bags before hanging the stockings back on their hooks, but I’m a bit of a clean freak. […]