Cleaning: making order out of chaos

I hate cleaning.

I hate cleaning because my step-monster was a nurse and the house had to be cleaned from top to bottom daily when I was growing up. Fortunately, there were five children in the household, and we were our own cleaning crew. We could scour everything and have it looking like a model house in under an hour. What did this involve? Not just the normal sweeping, vaccuuming, and dusting, but washing windows and mirrors, wiping down light-switch plates, moldings, and window-sills. Caring for umpteen house plants, all of which had to look perfect all the time. I mopped the floors twice a week and scrubbed them on my hands and knees once a week. The kitchen cabinets were wiped down daily, as were all appliances, and don't forget the top of the refrigerator. I emptied and cleaned the refrigerator once a week, and had to wipe down every bottle and container that went back into it. So, yeah, after doing that for 7 years, even 20 years later, I still hate cleaning.

But I do it. Just not as often.

I need order in my home life. I need symmetry, or aesthetically pleasing asymmetry. I like to put something down in the same place every time and know that it will be there when I come back for it. My mind is constantly trying to make order out of chaos, so I hate having to do it in my home life.

But living with Stephanie it is impossible. She just puts things down wherever she feels like it. She moves my things without thinking about how tweaked I am going to be when I can't find them. There is nothing more unnerving than knowing you put something right there and its gone. She starts laundry and leaves things for days in the dryer. She empties the cone filter in the sink but doesn't rinse the coffee grounds down the disposal. She doesn't throw away packaging when she buys things, she just leaves it where ever she opened it. She makes piles that slowly creep out to cover all available floor space.

So I go on strike. I don't clean up after her. And it gets really really bad, and she will say for days "I know, its my turn to clean the kitchen. I'll do it tomorrow." But she doesn't. So I start cleaning and she gets pissy because she feels guilty and she says "Stop! I'll do it." And sometimes she does and sometimes she doesn't.

And it makes me nuts, because I need the order. I need the symmetry, the clean lines--it calms and soothes me. Visual chaos in my environment tweaks me, it makes me restless, jumpy. I need to put it into order, and the longer I wait to act on my need, the more irritable and intense I get.

During that six month period that Stephanie and David and I lived together, Stephanie thought that it was David's fault that the house had to be kept neat and the kitchen cleaned up immediately after meals. But David was a slob when we got together, his mother and grandmother cleaned up after him, made his bed, cooked his meals--he never had to clean up after himself. Living with me for a few years, seeing me get tweaked and bitchy about messiness made him a neater person. He hated cleaning even more than I do, so his solution was to be precise, put things back where he found themm, and always clean up as he went along, and then he wouldn't have to become embroiled in some big cleaning scenario with me in high-bitch mode.

Stephanie is out, running errands in preparation for her trip overseas, and now I am seizing the opportunity to put some things in order. I will miss her, no question, but it will be lovely when she is gone, because then I will be able to clean everything and put it in order and know it will stay that way because I am the only one here.

And of course, she will have been home just a few days before Stas and I fly in from CA, so I don't think she will have much opportunity to create chaos. But then with her, I never know.