We’re quarantined due to COVID, so here we are stuck in our house…again. This time, though, the rest of the world is milling about, and we can’t even run to the store to pick up a few items. So what does that mean for me? I reassess my house, look at projects that have been on the to-do list, and start purging because that just makes sense. My mind is messy. I go into crazy places when I am not busy, and my anxiety takes over that things aren’t perfect. It really is a dangerous cycle I get myself in, but I think it’s important to share that.
The second biggest mess in our house is our side attic. (The first is my 8-year-old’s bedroom.) We have a space off of our master closet that we use to store holiday decorations, but a few years ago I gave the kids a part of that space in which to put their overflow toys. It works really well when my husband or I help them switch out a Barbie house for the horse stable or the Hotwheels tower for the play kitchen, but when they get their hands on it without supervision…watch out! It looks like an explosion happened at a toy store involving Disney princesses, thousands of puzzles, and a zoo of stuffed animals. I’ve been working from home and haven’t realized they’ve been entertaining themselves by getting all of the things out of the attic and not putting the other things away appropriately.
I went in today to get out my fall decorations and about lost my mind because I couldn’t reach my three boxes neatly labeled “fall” in the back corner. Then I stopped and told myself to be thankful that they have been self-sufficient while we have been unable to entertain them all day while home. I take a few deep breaths and decide this is a great opportunity to purge and reorganize.
But my purging and reorganizing take me down a black hole. I can’t just organize one space because as I am putting items away, I have to take other items back to my son’s bedroom, which is the worst disaster ever. I’ve been letting it go because, quite frankly, I have no time to tackle it. So as I take one item back to his room, I start reorganizing his closet because I know these Pokémon cards belong in the Pokémon binder at the bottom of his backpack sitting under his box of Matchbox cars in the Beyblade arena.
So while I’m rearranging all of that, I come across many books shoved in among the piles, and I start to put them on his bookshelf, realizing that there’s no room because they aren’t appropriately placed on the shelf. Now I have to empty the entire bookshelf, which gives me an opportunity to donate books or tuck my favorites away in the attic. Do you see how I get crazy? It’s seriously an anxiety-inducing process, but when I’m done with it, I feel amazing.
So hours later, I have the attic done, and I have my son’s closet and bookshelf finished. But his room is still a mess, and I haven’t put out my fall decorations yet. This is when I told myself that it’s ok to be done for today. It’s ok to accept the mess. I look around his room and see a million Lego projects that he has meticulously put together following directions and ones he created himself with his beautiful mind. I see art projects shoved in the corner of his room with drawings he made that say, “I love mama, dad, and Cali.” I see skulls of animals he’s proudly found on our family trips and walks through the woods displayed on his dresser in a neat row under more Lego masterpieces. And I see the world of my sweet little boy splattered all over the floor who doesn’t seem to care that he’s living in a world of filth.
With that being said, I’m going to decorate my house for fall, have a glass of wine, and make my family dinner because that’s what really matters at the end of today. It’s a beautiful day, the windows are open, and my kids are laughing and running around outside while I hear the weed whacker from my husband cleaning up the yard.
I often need to take a step back and realize that I will never have “perfection” in my life when I compare myself to the Pinterest perfect posts and others who portray happiness in everything they do. That’s not reality. But what is reality and perfect to me is my little family and their laughs, hugs, and messes that make us who we are.
I’ll finish tackling that messy room tomorrow, and I know it’ll be messy again in about three days, but there is an anxiety-reducing calm that comes with purging. Keeping the messes forever doesn’t help me, but realizing that there’s more important things sometimes than losing my mind over my child’s personal world of all his happy things does.
One day at a time, friends. There will be messes. There will be anxiety. But there must always be time for love and family. The rest can be tackled tomorrow. Or the next day.
