There's a lot to be said about the effect of physical surroundings when it comes to feeling better. When I tried explaining this to my boyfriend about a month ago, he looked at me like I'd come down with a mild case of squirrels chewing on my brainstem. Silly boy. He still lives with the mindset that a couple dozen beer cans strewn across the living room is perfectly normal to wake up to on a Saturday morning. I, for one, am sick of the typical college apartment and its deteriorating (or nonexistent) states of cleanliness. But it wasn't until recently that I realized how much the constant clutter and mess of our apartment was holding me back.
The boyfriend and I went through a few phases where we tried to be better about cooking meals instead of ordering them. But for the past year or so, I'd come home every day, completely exhausted, and the thought of even going into the kitchen to cook dinner was impossible because the kitchen and the table were never clean -s o I'd have to clean first and then cook and then I could eat. Much too daunting. Of course, I'd go through periods of cleaning. Keep the bathroom clean for a month or two. Make sure my clothes weren't on the bedroom floor for a couple of days. Put away stacks of books on occasion. I even went through several "let's clean the whole apartment!" days. But none of it ever stuck because I could never get anything to a state where I could just maintain it.
Well, I say nuts to that. That is a ridiculous way to live my life. I don't want to be at work thinking about how much I need to wash the dishes tottering in a pile in my sink. I don't want to worry about people coming over because they might not have anywhere to sit in my living room. Etc. etc. So a few weekends ago, I came up with a plan. I wrote out a huge list of chores that the boyfriend and I could do daily, weekly, and monthly to keep our apartment clean and cozy and a nice place to spend time. That's what I realized that I really needed, after all. A retreat from the rest of the crazy, messy world. (Especially because I work outside - often in people's trashed backyards and woodlots. Side note: people are disgusting if they think no one is going to notice. ...maybe they're disgusting regardless.) I sat down and wrote all of these chores out in great detail, not just "do the dishes" but "Dishes: round up dishes from entire apartment, rinse and load dishwasher, wash the rest by hand, wipe down kitchen counters and oven, dry and put away clean dishes". Just to be sure there was no mistaking what we meant by "oh, we should do the dishes." And then I set out the chores we could get by doing every week, and the things we could leave for every month.
And then we took a three day weekend and cleaned the entire apartment. Dusted, scrubbed, vacuumed, rearranged, put away, laundered, top to bottom the entire thing. It took the whole three days even though we only live in a two bedroom. I made sure to leave ample time for us to rest up each day so we didn't feel enslaved and crazy about the whole thing. I think that's an important rule to chores - they shouldn't feel like chains around your wrists and ankles. They should be easily accomplished in relatively short amounts of time. This is why I broke up all my future deep cleanings to happen occasionally in a very spread out fashion. I'll post my entire chore list here later.
All of this cleaning and organizing gave me what felt like an entirely new perspective on my life going forward. I decided that I really would like to leave my job as soon as I conceivably can. I decided that I want to take better care of my feline friends, clip their claws and clean their coats and maybe even brush their teeth once in awhile. (Oh, and play with them more, the poor dears.) And I realized that just having the weight of a messy living space off my shoulders was so completely relaxing that I was snapping less at my boyfriend. I was getting more accomplished after work! We've started cooking more too.
This blog is part of this new perspective. Cleaning my apartment, going to behavioral therapy (see previous post), and using my newfound time and energy to study for my Massachusetts State Arborist exam all made me feel better. And there are more things that I want to do to feel even better! Starting this week, I'm easing myself into an exercise schedule. A writing schedule. It's exciting because I don't feel like these things are going to be hard anymore. I've managed to follow my chores schedule for a few weeks now and the heady sense of accomplishment has completely gone to my head. I feel like now I can do anything if I put my mind to it.
Watch me go!
And look for more updates on my progress. I'm going to start by posting when I have time - but I absolutely will post every single Sunday to review my week's accomplishments, disasters (I expect there will be a few at least), advice, and sense of the future. I put a lot on my plate - maintaining two other blogs, finishing the edits on a novel I'm writing, searching for a new job, and starting a new daily exercise routine. It's a lot, but I'm enthusiastic.
No comments:
Post a Comment