First – why do you care? Haha, but really… if you care at all, why do you? How does it affect you?
When I was 22 years old, I moved to Cape Cod. I was entering the Active USCG Reserves while transitioning from a military member to a military spouse. My new home was located on a military base. It was not my first home as an adult, but it was the first home I set up alone.
This period was a transitional time in my life. Before then, I went straight from high school into the military. I was married just over a year later and unexpectedly pregnant 6 months after that. My life was busy, and I had not truly actively planned anything until that point.
As I looked around at all the boxes and pictures to hang, the disorder around me was affecting my mind. Or was it the disorder in my mind affecting my outer world?
I quickly went to work setting up home. While I opened boxes and organized the outward disarray, the disorder in my mind started to unravel into digestible thoughts. How do I gather all the college credits I accumulated into applying for a degree? Do I quit smoking? Have another baby? What do I want to be when I grow up?
As I unpacked and moved items—and then moved them again into better places—I made notes: call the education office, look into the local college, schedule that physical, reach out to neighbors, ask about pediatricians, talk to my spouse about a new baby while this little guy was still young so he had a playmate.
The act of outwardly organizing was helpful. I was making progress on something important, but also the monotony—combined with the active thinking of where we would most easily grab a plate—was just enough active and inactive brain power to keep my mind focused on the next phase of my life.
When the house was all set up and arranged just so, I missed the act of taking care of it. So I cleaned it really well. Again, the repetition and combination of active and inactive thought helped organize my inner thoughts, as they were all I had while doing this type of work.
I learned then that I very much enjoyed cleaning. All these years later I would label what I was doing as a sort of meditation, but at the time it only felt like cleaning.
I started to clean every day in various ways. There was everyday picking up—dishes, laundry, diapers, trash, wiping the table—but also things that needed to happen often but not daily: washing floors, laundering sheets, cleaning the bathroom. I put the non-daily essentials into a schedule for myself the way I learned in my years of cooking and meal planning, basically transferring my work skills to my home.
Then I moved these things outside—fix the fence, mow the lawn, ask about the grass seeds that are supposedly free.
I met my neighbors. They were all lovely. The one who was the friendliest lived across the street and worked on the base as a cleaner for the military houses in between family transitions. I don’t remember her name, but I will call her Melanie.
I asked Melanie what she did when she cleaned these empty houses, and she told me all about the floors and the blinds and the walls and corners—all the checkboxes she had to complete. Surprisingly, her house was quite a mess and she didn’t really enjoy cleaning. But she did comment that she saw me cleaning often.
What?
Saw me cleaning? How?
“Through your window,” Melanie replied.
Now I was embarrassed—but intrigued by what she told me. I hadn’t thought about cleaning blinds or paying attention to ceiling or floor corners.
A day or two later, I decided to tackle the blinds. As I was doing so, Melanie waved to me from inside her home across the street. I was slightly embarrassed yet again, but continued to clean the blinds as if it were a normal everyday occurrence.
The next time I saw Melanie, she commented on my cleaning again. That became the standard. It embarrassed me, so I often waited until I didn’t see her mini-van in the carport to clean anywhere near my own windows or outside.
Nonetheless, from there I continued a lifelong habit of cleaning nearly daily and scheduling various cleaning tasks throughout the week.
Through the years I’ve had to explain and defend my cleaning to partners, neighbors, kids, step-kids, and friends who comment—sometimes with annoyance—that my house is clean. I was always trying to hide it, clarify where I saw dirt or oils, negotiate with the kids to just vacuum that room—yes, on this setting. It was exhausting. I loved to clean when no one was home so I didn’t have to explain it.
Which brings me to the point of this blog.
Why did anyone care that I was cleaning in the first place?
I didn’t really ask for help. The kids’ chores—table setting, dishwashing, cleaning their own bathrooms, and scooping the cat litter of the cats they wanted—were not the demands of some Nazi clean-loving freak.
The cleanliness of other people’s homes doesn’t affect how much I enjoy visiting them or their company in any way. I’m not judging those who don’t like to clean. I know I’m unusual in this particular way.
So why does anyone really care what other people do? How they take care of their home, how often they cut their lawn, their hair, their fingernails? How deep into my life do you care about what I do—and why does my lawn count but my fingernails not so much?
At what point does what I do truly affect anyone else? Or does what I am doing make others reflect on what they are doing—and is that really my problem?
I did hide my real self for a long time worrying about what other people thought. That was not healthy.
This question grows from me into a larger scale. Why does anyone care who anyone loves or how they use their body to please a lover? How do the spices someone uses in their cooking matter to you? Why does it matter how other cultures cook, pray, love, dress, and take care of one another?
Yes, there are things that affect other people, but not as many as we think. Maybe the one house on the block with the overgrown lawn can bring down property value. There are things you can influence—like talking to that homeowner and maybe even offering to cut their lawn because they are a single parent short on time—but perhaps also accept how things are if that person doesn’t respond the way you’d like.
You cannot control other people. And just because you don’t like something they do—or don’t do—doesn’t make them wrong or crazy. Why waste mental energy on something you cannot control?
I’m not saying it’s easy. I’m just offering the suggestion to ask yourself why you might care and whether that energy is worth it. There is a locus of what you can control, what you can influence, and what you have no control over.
I clean all the time. I like it. It clears my mind. For me, the house doesn’t need to be very dirty to clean it—most people shower daily even when they aren’t that dirty. It is something in this crazy world that I feel I have control over.
I like the way I feel after moving around and taking care of the animate and inanimate objects that I own—my bed, plants, and pets. I like the way my surroundings look.
The question I asked myself when I was 22—whether the disorder of my environment affects my mind or if it is the other way around—is irrelevant to me today. Both matter. And this is one of my ways to care for both.
But why do I need to explain that?
You have control over your thoughts about why this, or anything, matters. Are you wasting your energy on something you want to waste it on? Do you have control over it? Influence? Neither?
I’m going to clean whether anyone likes it or not. I hope you collect your gnomes or pink socks or do whatever it is that you like—as long as no one is getting hurt. Don’t worry if I like it. I love you for being you and doing what you love.
Make sure you are doing no harm—and then do what you love without shame, question, or worry.
Be the change you want to see. Be what you wish the world to be.
It’s all you can do.
Thanks for taking the time to read. I’d love to hear your thoughts!
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