It's not always a choice in Well now

Donnal had just mentioned she was having guests over
and had spent part of the morning cleaning.
I had replied, equal parts honest admiration and resigned envy,
that she was a better woman than I.
I usually don’t have guests in.
She knows why.

“Well, you chose how you’re going to live.”
She said it with the conviction of the self-righteous.
She was uttering a truism and
she, right-thinking soul that she is,
lives her life right.
I, by massively obvious implication, don’t

I quickly turned the conversation elsewhere.
I was uncomfortable with being shamed.

When I finally hung up, I looked about at the chaos in which I live.
My house is a 3D realization of one of those hidden objects games on computer.
There is not a single horizontal surface of my home that does not have a tumult atop it.
And, of course, if there is no order there is no cleaning.
To clean a surface you need to be able to get to that surface and, save for the kitchen counters, there are no uncluttered surfaces inside these walls.

How does this happen?
A combination of things
- I am not naturally neat. I am not disciplined enough to set a schedule and keep to it.
Plus I am functionally adhd (self-diagnosed) and rarely finish anything I start.
(I refer even to the dozens of entry drafts stored here as proof.
You can’t see them? Oh, good. PB has a politely provided arug to sweep them under.)
- There is little storage in this house - one closet! - and way too many things. I’m not a hoarder, but I have more empathy for hoarders than is healthy. To move anything out of the spot it doesn’t belong is to move it into another spot it doesn’t belong. It never really improves.
- The cats constantly knock things over, claw things to shreds, and shed at a rate that should leave them completely bald but somehow doesn’t.
- And then there’s the whole issue of my back…

When we got off the phone I went into the living room. I’ve been working on trying to find the corner by the windows. I want to put a platform there for the cats to watch the street comfortably rather than perch precariously on sill.
It isn’t really their fault that they shred the curtains. It’s a natural reaction to sometimes losing their balance on the too narrow sill that they are constantly drawn to.
They spend more time in this house than I do. The least I can do is give them a comfortable place from which to watch the outside world.
So I’m going to make them a platform and put it into the corner of the living room where the two windows come together.

Yesterday I moved the upholstered chair from the windowed corner. I’d put it on a cushioned rug, so it wasn’t that hard to slide. As with most of the corners in this house, it’s what I call a cushioned corner. There’s no sharp angles about it. A drift of debris and dirt obscures the lines that used to be evident. Wafts of cat hair, dust, a book or two, an opened envelope, a closed one, hairpins, an old glove half-feline shredded… It had been a while since I moved the chair but still -

I had my usual cleaning arsenal
- two cardboard boxes,
a broom,
a scoop on a stick,
a roll of brown paper,
a grabber on a stick,
a magnet on a ribbon,
one spray bottle full of water
and another full of disinfectant.
I pinned back the curtains and began to work.

Grabber first to sort the big stuff. As I am no longer good at bending, most things that hit the floor in my house stay there until I muster the enthusiasm to (find and) use the grabber.
I snake the pinchers on a pole down to pick up books, the odd sandal (so that’s where Esme hid it!), cat toys, unopened envelope, remote to a television I haven’t used sine 2016, and the like to drop into the Sort Later box. All these objects will need serious dusting but are salvageable. Other large items like the opened envelopes, the stray paper adverts, the crumpled notepapers (that’s Coco’s favourite horde item), and such go into the Garbage box.
Next I use the magnet on the blue ribbon. I move the magnet just over the surface of the floor and am rewarded with a treasure trove of hairpins in various sizes click, click, clicking as they are captured and raised to my hand. If the ground is too far down for me to pick up dropped books without planning, you can bet the hairpins that fall out my hair don’t even register if I do notice them as they fall. There’s a bowl for those. I’ll wash and re-wear them later.
Sweeping. It’s actually harder than I would have imagined just a few years ago, but I manage it carefully with a light plastic handled broom and the no bend over scoop on a stick.

Getting a bit tired now
(only ten minutes of insanely light work to get me here, damn!)
but the corner’s not clean yet and I really do want to finish.

Looks like Lucy has left two smallish spots of regurgitory art that have petrified
and could become part of a permanent collection if not addressed properly.
I squirt them with water first to soften,
ball up some brown paper, drop it on the floor
and use my right foot to scrub the refuse off the wood.
(Who knew I am right-footed as well as right-handed?)
It takes a bit of patience and persistence, but eventually both bits of yuck come up.
I use the grabber to deposit the sodden brown wads into the garbage box.
Then I spray down a bit of disinfectant, toss another wad of brown paper
and wipe the necessary areas before grabbing those wads for the garbage box.
I’d love to leave it at that,
but any chemicals you use on a floor will end up on cats’ paws
and can be ingested during feline grooming routines.
Cats have been known to be poisoned this way,
so I repeat the water spray and brown paper wad wipe-up to save us all some grief.

And now my back actually is bothering me,
slipping undeniably from merely annoying mode into pharmaceuticals required mode.

I leave the boxes and cleaning supplies in the newly almost clean corner to go find the red plastic bottle of prescription strength relief.
Half a pill.
Half a pill won’t make me feel brand new, but it will make me feel a bit better
and it will demand only an hour or so of naptime
rather than the half a day nap that a full pill would.
Yep. Half a pill now and I’ll still be deal with that clean-up left-over clutteration later in the day.

And it’s at this point I realize
Donnal doesn’t know anything about my life.
Donnal retired a full decade ago because she married well and doesn’t need to work.
Donnal has the time and money to go to exercise classes
and yoga classes
and get massages whenever the mood strikes her.
Donnal is in lovely shape
and has never suffered broken vertebrae
and doesn’t find minor housework physically trying
and the pharmaceutical remedy for discomfort completely exhausting.

I love Donnal.
I am happy for Donnal.
Donnal has a right to be healthy and active and normal.
What Donnal does not have the right to do is make me feel guilty
because I am none of the above.
The state of my house is not a sign of my moral inferiority.

Donnal has no idea how hard it is for me to clean a corner
or how and why I “chose” to let it get into such a state in the first place.
She simply cannot understand or empathize.
It’s beyond her ability to realize
and beyond my pride to explain.

I’m doing the best I can here.
I have enough discomfort and disappointment and self-recrimination in my life.
I do not need to accept the shame she casually throws at me.

Last updated July 19, 2017