Monday, May 21, 2012

reminders: sit down, shut up, and eat your hummus.


The other day I was talking to a friend fine, mumbling to myself about how much I hate cleaning. I love the results of cleaning, but the actual act of washing my dishes and vacuuming the floor? No thanks. If it wouldn’t be such a ridiculous waste of money (for me), I would probably pay someone else to do it just so I didn’t have to.

That got me thinking – cleaning isn’t a bad way to make a living. My family hired a woman who came and really deep cleaned our house like once a month and homegirl banked. So, naturally, I wondered if I could ever be happy cleaning houses and I had a weird realization: I don’t mind cleaning other people’s stuff. It just cleaning my stuff makes me stabby.

Boyfriend was out of town at this point, and since he wasn’t around to look at me side-eyed when I didn’t put my dishes directly in the dishwasher, there was a growing pile of them in the sink. As I stared at them I felt irritated with myself for letting them sit there. For not having a cleaner house. Which led to me being irritated that my house wasn’t better decorated. Naturally, this spiraled quickly and within an hour I was mad at myself for not being a superwoman who had time to have an immaculate house and run her own business and look drop dead gorgeous everyday.

I mean, what the hell is that? I don’t put my dishes in the dishwasher for two days and now I’m a failure? Sit the fuck down, inner voice. It’s not that big of a deal. No one is superwoman.

In my brain, I know this – no one does everything without help and no one can DO ALL THE THINGS. Which is why I would be okay with cleaning up after someone else; I know they’re not superhuman and I’m helping them out. But I’m so much harder on myself. I think we all are. Aren’t you?  

This has to stop. From here on out, I am telling myself to not judge my own character based on the fact that there are dishes in the sink, the bed isn’t made, I forgot to tweet about something, or all I had to eat today was hummus and carrots. Guess what? IT’S OKAY. It’s okay to not do everything and it’s okay to be nice to yourself.  Self-improvement and getting things done is NOT the same as running yourself ragged and being Judgey McGee.

Note to self: Enjoy your life! Sit down and eat your hummus!

6 comments:

  1. i have that inner conversation with myself almost daily! it's hard to not beat yourself up. good luck finding that balance :)

    also, I cleaned houses for a while, and it's sort of fun to make money that way.

    (and sad to admit, I hate hummus)

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  2. Now, I really want hummus. I do this to myself sometimes as well. Like, why can't I do 1202309423 things at a time and just get everything done! It's taken me a while to figure out that I just need to sit down and breathe. Take one thing at a time!

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  3. I feel the same way. I hate cleaning my house, but I would be more than happy to go clean someone else's house. I do the same thing. I don't put a bowl in the dishwasher and after two days there is this huge pile! I could have prevented it all by just taking a minute to put things in the dishwasher :)

    <3 Jamie

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  4. When I finally stopped feeling guilty about all of the things I don't finish by the end of the day, life got SO much sweeter!!!

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  5. Nice post. Thanks for sharing useful information. salt lake house cleaning

    ReplyDelete

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