Immaculate or Lived in: How Do You Like Your Home?

 At the urging of a friend, I have opted to dedicate today’s column to clean houses, and my abhorrence for anything that smacks of perfection. Let’s put it this way – nobody is that clean, all the time, and nobody can possibly keep on top of the housework, 100% of the time.

I’m going to start off by stating, for the record, that I was never all that neat, to begin with. Growing up, I managed to be possibly one of the most disorganized teens on the planet. My mother could not abide by this, and managed to make sure that I learned how to become a whole lot neater. There were several examples where she tried to “teach” me, according to her methods. Somehow, I managed to learn the lesson, but it didn’t feel like it quite fit me, as much as she had hoped.

When I began renting, I realized the value of her lesson, and made it a point to keep my place a bit neater than my bedroom that I had at home. I can recall many a day, after a twelve hour shift, that I’d come home wiped, only to feel that urgent need to break out the vacuum and clean every last speck of dust off of my rugs. I even remember getting onto my hands and knees and scrubbing every single floor in my small apartment. It was a lot of work, but I really thought that having one’s own place meant having it look like it should be quartered off with velvet ropes.

After I got married, my husband and I split the duties of cleaning up. Our home was rather neat, and we really did not amass much, so it was pretty easy to get it done in a morning. Because we worked full time, nobody was here to “dirty the place up”, so to speak, so it was even easier.

This all changed, mind you, once we adopted Cubby, our black lab mixed breed.

Aside from the fact that every square inch of my house was covered in black dog hair, there were toys strewn all over the house from Miss Cubby. I also found several items chewed to pieces, including one of the legs of our new dinette set. A brand new pair of leather heels also got destroyed, so I learned quite quickly that I could no longer leave my shoes lined up in my bedroom. I suppose that’s what the closet is for, but I preferred to have my footwear readily available, should I opt to change my shoes in a hurry. As if that ever happened.

Once our daughter was born, I could see that having fingerprint-free mirrors and windows was going to be a thing of the pasts. I also learned that it was more important for our child to have her toys strewn about on every available surface, should she have the burning desire to stop exploring and pick up a doll or a stuffed animal. Slowly, but very surely, I began to build piles of things that I needed to read, bills to pay, coupons to file, papers to look through. As she got older, those piles grew…and grew…and grew…

Being a busy mom who worked evenings and nights took its toll on my clean house, as well. During the day, I spent my time, caring for my daughter and my dog, and at night, it was off to work. On the days that I wasn’t at the hospital, I was trying my hardest to keep the house in some semblance of order. This was quite difficult, considering the fact that I always felt as though there was not enough time in a day. I grew more cluttered, but the house was far from messy. I preferred to refer to the piles on my kitchen table, night table and desk as “organized clutter”.

I began to suffer from loss of memory, as a result of being torn into so many directions. I began to wonder if my house would ever look pristine again, and if my closets would ever look as though they had only the bare essentials within their shelves. The closets began to resemble the aftermath of a tornado.

I went to pick my daughter up from a friend’s house one day, and was amazed at how uncluttered the house was. There was not a pile to be seen, ANYWHERE. Not a speck of dust could be wiped off the furniture. The house smelled like bleach, and everything sparkled.

I began to wonder if I was doing it all wrong – this woman had three young girls, and I only had the one. How was she able to keep her house looking like it had just graced the cover of “Home & Garden”? She was also working, and had the demands of shuffling her daughters everywhere upon her shoulders – how was she able to get her house to look so damned good?

I always felt relieved when I entered the homes of friends who had some piles of mail on a table, some items strewn about the house, a few things out of place. I felt like their homes were the most inviting, warm, and felt the most lived in. I never felt like I had to “keep up” with these moms – they were busy with their families, their lives, and very rarely felt the burning desire to keep their homes in tiptop shape.

I know several people who have homes that look immaculate, all of the time. When I come to their homes, nothing looks out of place. I begin to overthink and feel inadequate with my housekeeping skills, until I realize that perhaps, the home was straightened out before guests were to arrive. Perhaps these people are, in fact, much more organized by nature. In any event, it’s a skill that I sorely lack.

When it comes to organization, however, I seem to know where everything is. This drives my husband crazy; he's always asking where things are. Since I know where everything basically is, I'm able to amaze him when I whip the requested item from a small pile. That being said, I secretly harbor the wish that someone would come and organize my house into three piles, labelled "keep", "donate" and "discard".

But Life isn’t perfect, and I think it’s time to learn to let things slide a little bit. My family has clean clothing on a regular basis. The floors do not house a vast number of dust bunnies, and every surface is not cluttered. I might be a little hard on myself – I’m sure that a house that looks lived in and enjoyed is a whole lot better than making myself nuts with the unrealistic desire to have it look spotless all the time. I’m sure there are a lot of people out there who would agree with me – they, like me, might love the smell and look of an immaculate home. However, when reality sets in, the most important thing in the world is the family that lives in it, and how much the home is truly enjoyed and loved.