Bare Minimum

Sometimes acts of domestic derring-do require considerably more time and precludes posting on a blog. Such was the case the past few days, during which I was not actually in my physical domicile, but more outside maintaining the spiritual concept of my domicile.

What I mean is that we’ve been attending to extended family matters for the past week. Emotionally exhausting but very necessary.

When I was younger I thought times like these qualified as “emergencies”: an illness, a family member in crisis, or a death. Having weathered enough of them, though, I know they are just a part of the flow of everyone’s life. The rest of the world keeps spinning on its axis, the illusion of the sun coming up and going down continues, and the dust keeps piling on the end table even though I have no time to dust it. Only back then I figured I was exempt from day-to-day maintenance. So the dishes would pile up and the clutter would accumulate as I flitted out the door on my way to make everything all right somewhere else.

The problem is that eventually you have to return home to face the music, so to speak, and when you do, you are already emotionally bereft. Yet there they are: the sink full of dishes, the mountain of clutter, a fetid pile of laundry. The elves of compassion did not show up while you were gone to make them go away. Just when you need relaxation the most, the backlog screams at you from every corner.

And, since the aforementioned circumstances are a constant part of life, things can truly get out of hand and beyond even a rested person’s ability.

So I’ve learned that, no matter what, some basics have to be done, even if it means spending an extra exhausted half hour sorting laundry after a sitting in a surgical waiting room all day or getting up 10 minutes earlier to wash up the dishes.

Basically, I deal with my “hot points,” chores that, if left undone, are guaranteed to drain me of any positive emotion I have left. The mail piling up is one of mine, along with dishes in the sink and an unmade bed. So I make sure these get done.

And I delegate even more than usual. My boys are old enough now to know that, during times like these, I don’t care who did “it” last, how much he did as compared to you, or whether or not “it” is important to the overall condition of the universe. Just get it done and we’ll sort out justice later. There was a time when I had to quote the previous sentence in order to see some action, but thankfully they’ve memorized it as Mom Quote #34. (Mom Quote #17 is: “Put the laundry in the hamper. Not by the hamper. Not near the hamper. Not on top of the hamper. Not in the vicinity of the hamper. In the hamper.”)

What I aim for is that feeling of “ahhhhhhhh” when I come home, not a sinking feeling when I open the door and am reminded of all I have to do just to catch up.

More than anything during these times I need my home to be a sanctuary.