Yup, it was 6o plus degrees outside yesterday and I suddenly knew it was the right day to clean the house. Of course, the fact that I’d been putting it off for weeks helped make the decision. Gladly, I’d gotten a lot accomplished in those weeks while I wasn’t cleaning. But the dirty windows were interfering with my enjoyment of the arrival of sunshiny springtime outside.
Five hours later, I can say only about half the necessary chores were accomplished to declare this house “clean”. I felt proud that there would be less sneezing when one of the overhead fans was turned on. And I had had a lot of thoughts on the subject of cleaning during the day. And because everyone’s going to be over-covering this same subject soon, I’ll just get it over with now.
Like my grandmother and father before me, I’m a Virgo. This supposedly means I’m a clean freak. My family may agree. I had my own cleaning business while in college. Was I good? Good enough until people took a hard look at their budget. Then I was the first “item” to go. They secretly said to themselves I wasn’t good enough but truly, they weren’t brave enough to tell me the truth about what they were unhappy with. Yet, they wouldn’t have moved the couch if they were the ones cleaning their houses. Or dusted the outside of their staircases. Please.
I chose to ignore the concept of the futility of cleaning the house. Hadn’t I just cleaned these windows? I know I vacuumed two weeks ago. Like asking yourself, “Why am I hungry, didn’t I just eat?” or “How did all this dirty laundry get here, didn’t I just do the wash?” The answer is yes and yes and yes. Accept that these are just proofs of your existence. The alternative is death or hiring someone to do it. And you’ll never be happy with either.
