This weekend, and by that I mean TOMORROW at 8am, my family are packing up and boogieing themselves to the Wisconsin Dells. I, matriarch of this clan, am to remain home to ostensibly make our house all better. I, matriarch of this clan, in fact DEMANDED that my husband take this trip. Away. With the children. Away. All 3 of them. All weekend. I’m serious. I’m booking it for you.
It was like that.
Kory was all, “Oh honey, you want to go too, don’t you?”
And when I stopped laughing I was like, “Uh, absolutely not.” As if I would pass up the opportunity for maybe up to 56 hours alone in my house. A few things I’m NOT dying to do? How about put on a bathing suit and flounce around in public. How about sleep on a hotel room bed. How about hours in the car with all the kids. Yeah, those things.
And then there’s the house. The big messy house. The house in which the cleanest room is Wyatt’s and that’s only because he’s only in there to sleep. The house in which there are so many piles of laundry (clean, dirty, mixed.. who the hell knows anymore. We’ve taken to sniffing everything) and toys and boxes and laundry and toys and just PILES AND PILES everywhere that some rooms, you’d have to guess what color the carpet is. YEAH, MOM, ITS THAT BAD.
The playroom not only has enough toys for 100 children, but it’s become a receptacle of everything that the person holding it doesn’t know where it really should go. Mostly that person is Peter. Who, when charged with cleaning, moves everything from the kitchen to the dining room and everything from the dining room to the living room and everything from the living room into the playroom. And also puts all the dishes in the wrong places and hides the garlic salt in a different place each time…….. but that’s a whole other bag of annoying. So, the playroom is chock full of crap. Toys, video games… but also old clothes, gardening supplies, power tools. I’m telling you that it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if when I move some piles out of that room I find that a dude named Bob was now living there.
“Bob“, I’d say, “How’d you get this tent set up in here without us knowing.”
“Who are you kidding?”, Bob would sneer. “You haven’t set foot in here since February.”
“You can’t stay here, Bob. It’s our playroom.”, I’d say.
“But I used the power saw to make a garden by the dollhouse and I planted strawberries!”
So, the PLAN is that I am going to clean the entire house while they are gone.
The PLAN is that in exchange for having 56 hours to myself, they are going to return to a house transformed.
The PLAN is that laundry will be eradicated. Wash. Dry. Fold. Put away.
That Goodwill will play heavily into PLAN. We always talk about taking all the kids clothes to Once Upon a Child and Kory likes to suggest we sell them on ebay or have a garage sale… BUT WHAT I’M SAYING IS, if we can’t be bothered to remove the strawberry plant and the drill from the playroom and I broke a mug in the bathroom this morning, because I’m apparently amassing a collection of them in there, I’m sure as hell not going to find the time/energy/desire to take pictures of things and post things and mail things and set up tables and AAAAAAAAACK! I need to accept my limitations and throwing all that shit into bags and driving it to Goodwill is where I top out. Dammit.
The PLAN is upstairs on Friday. (our bedroom, our bathroom, Bella’s room, Wyatt’s room, bathroom… I’m not touching Peter’s.)
Downstairs on Saturday (kitchen, dining room, living room, playroom, laundryroom, bathroom)
Sunday will be driving it all to Goodwill and maybe…maybe… starting on the garage.
And at night… well, at night after organizing and cleaning all day, the plan is to try to do the same to my brain. To my heart. To myself. Like my house, I’ve spent the last year just sort of existing. I have a lot of piles in my head. I have allowed good things to slip away. I’ve allowed bad things to get worse. I’ve allowed distance to happen. I’ve allowed myself to draw into a cocoon and little by little peel away all the people in my life that were difficult in some way…. I can’t even say I’m seeking peace or happiness so much as … ease. I just want simple. Simple doesn’t come easy to me.
If complicated people were a flame, I’d be one of those stupid flappy moths that bangs my head against them again and again. But, also like a moth, I’m pretty easily crumpled. And I think I just got tired of being crumpled. Decided that I’d rather be a moth that just hung out and watched Top Chef and drank wine. Screw those complicated people. That crumple me.
Anyway, I have a feeling that this mass removal of people is maybe not the healthiest thing I’ve ever done… and even if I can’t change it or end up just not changing it… I think it’s a really, really good idea for me to honestly take a look at it and really confess to myself why I’m doing it. When the motives for doing something are so deep that you don’t even tell yourself, that’s something to take note of.
Self, why’d you do that?
I dunno.
You do! You’re you and you did it, so you must know. Don’t lie to you.
Well, I can ask myself again, but I know myself pretty well and I’m probably still going to say I don’t know.
Yourself is an asshole.
Yeah, I know.
So, that’s the PLAN.
Clean the house. Clean my brain. De-clutter my house. De-clutter my brain.
And also watch Top Chef and drink wine. Duh.