Cleaning. I have never been good at cleaning. I spent more time trying to negotiate out of cleaning my room then actually cleaning it. It seemed to snowball in my teenage years when my life became a pitter patter of busyness and activities and sports and responsibilities and the socializing all more important than the actual business of the cleaning of the room. My father- I would tell him dad other girls are pregnant or doing drugs in my sad attempt at trying to get out of the cleaning of my room. Without skipping a beat of the drum of parenthood he threw back my way- I don't give a shit about them, get up there and clean your room.
Things haven't changed much. I will go on streaks when I try to actually put clean clothes away upon the exiting out of the dryer. There will be times I will dance with a cleaning once a week. But nothing sticks in this department. I am too busy. I have better things to do. Its sunny outside. I got to relax. Anything and everything to avoid it.
It surprises me. Because I do a good job of attacking most things head on the unmentionables of life that people hush about out loud or in their own inner dialogue the court reporter in their own very heads. But why not address this? My clothes always look clean and so do I even if I skip the shower too. I will never be the Martha Stewart of femininity-I would have failed as a cookie cutter of cleanliness as a 1950s housewife. But what about me that I can't face it. The clothes strewn about. The wrapper of a dark chocolate bar for before bed time. Receipts that provide a record of how I spend my time. Papers and more papers.
Cleaning. I am good at cleaning the soul. Cleaning what I should. Cleaning enough to squeak by. But maybe it is the spending the time on cleaning up myself and others that I just can't face the physicality of this task. I know most experts, those who specialize in clutter and hoarding and the such would tell me the room reflects my psyche. That it is cluttered and unmanageable and out of control. But I don't feel that way. I feel calmer than I have in years. My yoga mat being one of my clutter free zones. I should place in on my bed to zen me out. To begin the cleaning.
I really hate the loneliness of cleaning the room. But I don't mind the cleaning of the soul, yours and mine and others. Maybe we all get a speciality and mine has more to the organizing the hard questions and the lifting sometimes heavy and the folding of dreams and behaviors and dusting away the old to become someone new.
Today. Today I might have cleaned my room. My room. If I hadn't been on vacation. On vacation. From the cleaning. The cleaning I do. And the cleaning I still need to. You never really get a break from the working on yourself. And my work. My choice of work. Of the listening and moving and helping. The cleaning of humans but still letting the messiness of them survive while they do the heavy lifting for themselves. Sometimes you just need someone there to help you clean. I know I do.
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