Relaxation

There are certain things about being an adult that I didn’t “get” when I was a child or teenager. Whenever my mom, despite her exhaustion, would flit about the house cleaning and tidying, I would tell her to relax, to sit down. She would respond that she couldn’t relax until everything was clean.

I didn’t get it then, but now I do.

I can – and do – sit down when I am tired, but the level of relaxation is not nearly so complete if my house is in shambles around me. It irks me and my mind is not at ease. “Ridiculous,” the 13-year-old in me would say. The 25-year-old me just can’t help snapping, “It needs to get done, and if I don’t do it now, it will never get done; you’re certainly not helping.” To which the 13-year-old responds, “Oh no, please, please, please don’t say that … you are becoming … your mother!”

Having recently moved, I feel like my house is in shambles (still) and all of the to-dos are piling up. And decorating/home improvement projects are surpassing everyday tasks on my list of priorities … probably because they are more fun. I will confess, I haven’t cleaned the master bathroom toilet since we moved into the new house. That is shameful and downright disgusting. (I have, however, cleaned the guest bath, because guests can’t know I am that bad of a housekeeper … shhhhhhh!) I have also purchased ribbon, cloth and fabric glue and custom created a valence for the guest bathroom. So at least one bathroom is pretty and clean … glass half full, people.

Every time I go home from work, my mind races with things that need to be done: grocery shop, cook dinner, clean up after dinner, vacuum, pay bills, water the plants, do laundry, make phone calls, etc. And those things don’t leave much time for the other things on my list: build shelves in the garage, sew curtains, actually UNPACK the dozens of boxes still in the closet, or hang pictures on the wall. Two months in, I still don’t have any pictures on the wall, except for one … in the guest bathroom, actually.

I find it odd, in fact, that the master bathroom, which gets a whole lot more use than the guest bath, only has a pillow case hanging over the window. (Just keeping in classy, ya’ll.)

But back to my point (is there a point?) about relaxation. Sometimes, when everything is a mess (literally and figuratively), it is hard to quiet my mind enough to just enjoy life. And try as I might to make it otherwise, I am realizing that most of the time life is simply a mess (again, literally and figuratively). So what am I to do with that?

The only answer I have comes from my 13-year-old self. Reorder my priorities. Actually enjoying time with the people I care about is much more valuable than a clean bathroom. Train my nagging brain and its never-ending chore checklists to shut up already! Accept the fact that my house will never be perfectly tidy, and give myself permission not to unpack the last box until 2012 (It will have been so long since I’ve seen those things, it will seem like Christmas. See? Glass half full.)

Of course these things are all easier said than done … which is why I will be spending the majority of my “relaxation” time in the only tidy, decorated place in the house … the guest bathroom.