Embrace the mess is my new mantra

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 18/01/2021 (1879 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

I have a confession to make. I can’t find the surface of my dining room table, and I haven’t seen the surface of the my dining room hutch since before the pandemic started.

There are piles and piles of stuff everywhere — from toys and markers to mail and mountains of school and daycare art projects — that I haven’t had a chance to file away yet. My house is a testament to the children who live in it. In fact, right now there are 2,000 various sized water beads in a number of large containers taking up most of the surface on my coffee table. There is a laundry basket full of clean laundry in my living room, and it’s usually there, always full even after I’ve folded everything, because it is bottomless and I have learned that laundry actually never stops.

It’s amazing how the stuff adds up.

A lot of the table top spaces in my home have become a sort of graveyard for unfinished projects and activities and I teeter from not caring about the mess to caring deeply and being really bothered by it, some of which is mine. I have the greatest intentions to clean, sort, organize and give away most of the things in my home, I just need to figure out when.

I’ve tried the Marie Kondo method, I’ve watched the Get Organized with The Home Edit Show on Netflix, I’ve purchased chore charts for the kids, and I have tried implementing more cleaning in our already full daily routines. So far, my biggest outcome has been more anxiety and crumbled expectations.

Now, I’ll say that my house is not dirty, so much as it is messy, and it’s not always messy. Sometimes my house is spotless for brief periods until the piles of stuff begin to form again. It’s the darnedest thing, little piles of LEGO or LOL Surprise Dolls lying under blankets of Tissue or face cloths just sort of pop up out of nowhere. I think my youngest two are actually allergic to their socks because I always find them stuffed in the couch, or underneath the coffee table, and I can only find hair brushes when I’m not looking for one.

Some people would say that our house is just lived in, and I can agree to that. It’s just lived in… really, really well and a lot by five people who have a lot of stuff. I actually thought we would have more time to keep it tidy since we are in the midst of a pandemic and are adhering to strict stay at home orders, including working from home, but it turns out we don’t. The grind is just different, and my partner and I are still juggling the best way we can.

Having kids is messy. It just is.

I’ve tweeted about this a few times and every time I do there is always a parent, usually a mom, who will respond by telling me how lucky I am for my mess.

They’ll take me out of my mindset and give a whole new perspective by explaining how their house used to look like mine, and how it is now clean and quiet because their kids are older and have moved out, or they just don’t use up their space or time the way they did when they were little. They warn me that one day I will miss my mess, and everything that comes along with it, and everything it means. The mess can wait, your kids can’t.

Every time a seasoned mom reminds me of what I have and what I am forgetting to appreciate, it hits me. Childhood and time are fleeting, it’s in my control to enjoy them and make the most of them.

I don’t know how many times my daughter has asked me to play with her and I’ve told her no, because I needed to clean up, or do the dishes, or organize something that could wait. It pains me to think about it really, because soon enough she won’t want to play Barbies with me or go bike riding, or to the playground. These years are precious, even if they are a bit chaotic.

So, I am learning to embrace the mess, and to choose how to best spend my time. This isn’t to say that we put off cleaning altogether, heck no. We make the kids clean their rooms and do chores, we do our share as well, but we don’t live in a show home and I need to stop expecting that we should. We have kids and we’re busy. The mess is inevitable and for the foreseeable future the piles of stuff are just a part of the decor.

@ShelleyACook

Shelley.Cook@freepress.mb.ca