February 19, 2011 ~ Day 72 Let There Be Mess...

...and there WAS mess, and it was good. Well, sort of!

Yesterday while trying to sort through hundreds of small plastic toys and make room in the garage for more of the furniture that does not fit in our new house, I sat down on the back porch steps and sighed.

"Honey," I said to my husband, "Why does it feel like so many of our friends ended up at the Pottery Barn and we landed at Toys 'r Us?"

My husband laughed. "Maybe because we have three children under the age of six?"

"No, that can't be it. Other people have three children and they still have beautiful homes."

"Well," he smiled. "We're a work in progress."


I can remember a time, almost fifteen years ago, when I was fresh out of college and had been hired on to work for Oracle Corporation as a technical writer and manager. Just six months outside of graduation I was batting my eyelashes at a future filled with international travel, matching furniture, a high salary and stock options.

I found a few roommates and together we moved into a brand new two-level tract house, complete with fluffy carpet and shiny wood floors. I was all set up to live a life of promise, when something happened.

This is the thing that happened. I realized I didn't actually *fit* inside of the cookie cutter.

In fact, I discovered that I was far more Bohemian than I had ever realized. I'd recently met a musician in my home town who lived most of the time out of his van, surfing by day and playing by night. He'd introduced me to a life of squalid college style houses filled with '70s shag carpeting and the ever-present, slightly fetid stench of stale beer. Most of the furniture had been picked up in alleys around the college area, with the philosophy "one man's junk is another man's treasure". The highest success of all within this guy's circle was creating art and letting your art carry you to success.

At that time I had just exited four years of academia coupled with elite privilege and, at times, plasticity. After a week of spending my days with this curly haired Dead-head, I was hooked. Abandoning a life of custom tailored suits and pantyhose I quit my job, left Northern California and headed south for my roots: bicycling the boardwalk, flip flops all day long, music and art.

I didn't end up with that wandering musician but in the process of filtering through my two year relationship with him and its aftermath, I later discovered that what had drawn me to him in the first place was a connection to a deeper part of myself: the part that looks out of windows at the clouds and dreams. In the years after we parted I wrote my own declaration of independence from a well groomed life and instead embraced the freedom of living without rules.

Here are some simple truths about me:

• If I have to choose between money for nice things and time with my family, I choose my family


• I would rather read a book than iron a shirt


• I envy my friends who know how to apply makeup and who always match; despite this, I will probably never wear a lot of makeup and even when I *try* to match my clothes or dress up, one of my children always manages to put a greasy hand directly on my breast


• I gave up my career and the chance to augment my husband's salary for a comfortable life so that I could devote my day to nurturing and caring for our kids; a choice I don't regret ~ despite the fact that this turned out to mean spending 99% of my day cleaning up after them


• Sometimes, I resent my children for being so messy


• Most of the time, I feel frustrated with myself for not being a more competent housekeeper

I was so blessed nearly a decade ago to find a life partner who tolerates mess as well as I do... (actually, better). My husband cleans in phases. For a while he will get wrapped up in his work and completely ignore the house. Typically there will come a moment when he suddenly decides that he feels like cleaning and passionately throws himself into washing dishes or doing laundry all day. Once that is out of his system, he returns to ignoring the house again.

We came to an arrangement long ago that as long as kitchens and bathrooms are kept clean daily, other mess is okay. Dirt, no. Mess, yes.

Since having children we've created an addendum to this rule. As long as the kids are bathed with clean clothes and clean diapers, with all of the nutritious food they could want ~ the rest doesn't matter so much. And heck, if they eat a little dirt in the back yard it isn't the end of the world either. They'll just have a tougher immune system someday.

Unfortunately neither my husband nor I has an aesthetic vision for how to put our child-shabby furniture together in a lovely way. If we ever end up with a lot of money, my sense is that we will probably go to Z-Gallerie or Pottery Barn and order the things that have already been arranged to match well. Either that or we will hire one of our friends with an eye for interior design and let her have her way with our house. My mother-in-law is also a genius at decorating... that could come in handy.

In all honesty I wish that we had less mess in our lives and more clean unadorned space. I wish I could be as Type A as I know I come across to people who don't know me well. I wish I was organized and capable when it came to our homefront. Still, by the age of 35 you just have to accept the essential truth ~

This is who we are. This is how we live. It's okay.