Mar 16, 2015

It's all dirty


It’s a different animal: cleaning for an event (the correct term is “accident,” but let’s not talk about that) versus cleaning as a regular activity. Your focus is more directed, targeting a tangible moment (or moments) rather than cleaning to carve away at the grime that life leaves behind – the film that coats every little thing – the windowsill, the tops of shelves left bare, the tops of books on shelves attempting to hide their bareness with volumes of pretty words. And isn’t that what I do? Hide behind pretty words I write? So isn’t that what I’m really seeking? A vulnerability that is clean – sterile, purified? It takes so much routine cleaning to maintain a level of “normal” in a home, and yet the task is so thankless, so behind-the-scenes that it feels futile. And yet we carry—I carry—on this burden, this cross in silence.

Ah, Catholicism. There you are again! The need to atone, the original sin that makes me a bad person, the need for penance and suffering. Are these ideas what eat away at my self-esteem? Or is it because I already had these feelings of worthlessness that I so willingly took these teachings to heart?

It’s a downward spiral nonetheless. And I still have to vacuum.

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