I give up. I do. I am done. Will somebody please come to my house (while nobody is home), light it on fire (just the inside), and then put it out after the entire interior of my house is gutted? Oh, and let me get out my photos, Bible, and laptop first. The jewelry was already stolen, so that’s no matter. Clothes? I’d love an excuse to buy new ones. Everything else, please just burn it and let me start over. Really.
This is literally the most hopeless mess I have ever seen in my life. I worked all day long with hardly a break, and my house looks barely any different than it did when I began. I am so completely and totally discouraged that my motivation to do anything at all is gone.
And on top of the mess, while pulling out the sixth load of laundry from the dryer, I found that an orange crayon had literally destroyed the entire load. And when I say destroyed, I mean the socks were all completely orange, the shirts, uniforms, and jeans looked like they were orange polka-dotted on purpose, and the entire inside of my dryer drum looked like a neon safety-vest.
Can you say MELT DOWN??? And I am not talking about the crayon. All three men in my family got the full brunt of my ire at the very highest volume I could muster for anything and everything they have done (or NOT done) to make my life difficult over the past few months, including, but not limited to, leaving laundry for so long that there were literally THREE FULL LOADS of clothes JUST in the boys’ room, leaving me so overwhelmed I forgot to check pockets before putting clothes in the washer. And yes, it is absolutely the fault of my otherwise very wonderful, loving husband for not helping with laundry, and the boys’ fault for putting crayons in their pockets to begin with, NOT my fault for failing to check pockets. At least, tonight it is
Fast-forward to an hour later: my dryer drum is pretty much clean (hopefully clean enough NOT to turn the current load orange), and there are a few select items such as uniforms and favorite shirts soaking in Zout in order to hopefully remove their polka-dots. Everything else went into the trash can.
And I am spent. And sick of working from sun-up to sun-down with seemingly no results, and people undoing everything I do as soon as I do it; tired of my cleaning “tools” being removed and used to clean downstairs porches and outside areas and not being returned, leaving me unable to do what needs to be done; and seemingly being the ONLY one who cares whether or not we live in absolute chaos and filth (or who thinks that chicken poop ON THE PORCH is absolutely disgusting and unsanitary)!
So am I complaining? The answer is yes, I am definitely complaining. I keep getting the always-maddening advice from people to “learn what to let go.” And that is the problem. We have let so many things “go” that we can’t even function anymore. When you cannot find a single clean item of clothing to put on your children for school, there is no counter-space left to make lunches, and the top of the kitchen table has disappeared leaving nowhere to eat breakfast, then it is time to stop “letting things go.” Enough is enough – but in all honesty, I don’t even know where to start.
I tried to take advice from an organizing guru and “center myself” first. Problemo uno – I cannot be centered internally when my external surroundings are complete chaos. My brain does not function that way. The chaos destroys my focus and leaves me so paralyzed that I can’t even think of where to begin.
So what am I to do? Do I hire somebody to come in and order my space? Can’t afford it. And that is all I want – I just want my space ordered. Once my environment is decluttered and ordered, hopefully I can take it from there and learn to keep it that way. I think…?
I’ve tried it all – I’ve read the books written for “messies.” I’ve put on my sneakers first thing in the morning, hoping to motivate myself to “get moving.“ I’ve made chore lists, offered incentives (ie, bribes), bought pretty baskets, yada yada yada…
Y’all, I just need an organizing angel to drop into my house, wave her magic wand (do angels have magic wands, or is that the fairy godmother…?), and disappear everything we DON’T need while perfectly organizing everything we DO need. Then, she (angel or godmother, it makes no difference to me) can sprinkle magic “just do it” dust on all my family members and some “sweet, gentle, don’t get so mad” dust on me, and then everything will be fine and life will be peachy, with no mess, nobody ranting about messes, and no guilt the next day for flying off the handle with your family the night before over a stupid crayon that represents perfectly good clothing thrown into the trash can, and an hour’s worth of scrubbing a dryer drum and spraying clothes, when you really needed to be sweeping the kitchen and doing more laundry.
So where’s my angel? Fairy godmother? Sigh. I just want to enjoy this Christmas, and not in the middle of a mess. I bet the innkeeper even cleaned his stable occasionally.
Why can’t I just have order? I don’t want perfection, just order. Is it too much to ask? And is it too much to ask for the ability to just hold it all together? Some people can. Why not me?
Does there have to be an uplifting, spiritual message in every blog post? Am I responsible to encourage when I am completely DIScouraged?
I suppose we all are, so here is my encouragement: Jesus was born in the middle of a mess. I don’t care how often the innkeeper might have cleaned his stable. Horse and donkey poop is messy. (And so is chicken poop, in case you were wondering.) It is also smelly. And if God Himself was willing to come down into the middle of a mess and be God there in the middle of it, then He can come down into the middle of MY mess and be God here, too. At least there’s no horse and donkey poop in my house. That’s a start.
He can forgive me for losing my temper and give me the courage and humility (which I am not feeling at the moment) to ask my family for forgiveness in the morning. He can turn my anger and frustration into productive energy and hopefully help me accomplish at least what really NEEDS to be accomplished; and He can give me peace in the middle of this chaos.
I heard a song tonight, “A Baby Changes Everything.” Does He ever. He changes not only my heart, but my outlook and perspective as well. Yes, I am still frustrated over the state of my home and other situations in our lives; but my peace comes from knowing that His joy way deep down is permanent while not a single situation around me is. And neither are my feelings.
Since my family are all human, there will be a mess around me most of the time. It is not the unpardonable sin. Since I am human, I will yell and sometimes lose my temper when I am faced with chaos. I can be forgiven; and I can be more understanding of my son the next time he loses HIS temper in a moment of complete frustration, and remember he comes by it honestly.
And in the middle of all of that, well I don’t know what else. This was real life tonight. Check back tomorrow for something perhaps a little more uplifting. 😉
Signing off. Love to all. And Merry Christmas from one messy household to another. xo
Journey to Beautiful 