Cleaning House

The conversation went like this:
Her: Hey, how was work?
Me: Not so bad today. I actually had some stuff to do. You?
Her: Good. Busy. Wait, are you cleaning again?
Me: No, of course not, I'm only folding this blanket...
Her: And you put the dishes away, probably have already vacuumed and cleaned the bathroom too?
Me: Well, ok... maybe I did a few of those things...

A new self-realization: When something is bothering me, I clean. (Or run, but that's sorta a given that's more or less built into the daily schedule.) And I don't mean the bimonthly vaccuum-the-floor type stuff. This is more like clean-the-entire-apartment-as-fast-as-I-can. Since when have I ever done that? Now don't get me wrong, I like things to BE clean, but I'm not really a fan of engaging in the process to get to that point. I mean, it's just going to get dirty all over again. Like why make your bed every morning? Sure it looks nicer, but who's going to see it? You're just going to crawl right back into it the next night, right? (Oops, Mom is probably reading this...) But as of late, I feel pretty confident that our floor is clean enough to eat off of. Dirty dishes stay in the sink no longer than the time it takes to eat dinner, if that. And likely, if something goes MIA in the apartment, just ask me where I stashed it when straightening things up.

Seems sorta silly, I know, but don't we all do things like that? Don't we all find a way to escape our emotions, to avoid dealing with issues, to drown out the little demons that keep surfacing? Or maybe it's a big demon, something that won't seem to go away no matter how hard you try to push it to the back of your mind. And so we dive. We dive as deep as we can, into whatever we can, for as long as we can in an attempt to preserve our sanity. And it works. Temporarily. But then when we lay down to sleep at night, there's that realization that some things don't just magically disappear or disintegrate no matter how much we'd like them to.

The answer? Well, considering the fact that sweeping the floor is on my to-do list, I offer no solution.

But I was thinking... Maybe we could ask someone else to help us clean. Maybe we could share our burdens over a dustpan, even if it is just bits and pieces and a whole lot of trash. And just maybe, we might sleep a little better at night.