Thank You for Showing Me Your Mess

It comforts me to know I’m not alone in my struggle

There is something about knowing I’ll be having guests over that triggers a primal need for appreciation and acceptance. And that’s fine. We all crave this response from our fellow humans.

At some point though, most of us decided it’s not ok to show our true nature and struggles to those around us. So we hide, we embellish, we clean. We make everything perfect.

But we’re far from perfect.

Life is messy

Life is messy, from the very origins of it, until the end. Creativity is a mess, both in our heads and on our canvas/notepads/studios. Progress is oh, so very messy, as is any kind of learning.

There is no way of stopping the mess from forming. You’d have to be in a coma, or dead, and even then, the aftermath and mess of other people dealing with you is a testament of how mess transcends even death.

Joy is also messy. Your perfectly curated house only stays pristine a second after your friends arrive. Enough to admire it and exchange kind words, before the show begins: glasses and dishes scattered everywhere, shoes that overflow the entryway, coats piling up in the bedroom.

It’s a glorious mess, one filled with the love and laughter of relaxed people letting the guard down and enjoying each other’s presence. The kind of mess you enjoy cleaning while thinking about the day’s conversations and meaningful connections.

Other people’s mess is strangely comforting

My husband and I were invited to a friend’s place once. We were new in town, and this couple we had just met invited us over to their house. It was gorgeous, the kind you see in magazines, with vases filled with fresh flowers, carefully selected pieces of art hanging on the walls, and a couch and armchairs generous enough to seat ten people.

We were about the same age and had similar professions, but I felt both in awe and deeply intimidated. Their house was spotless and they didn’t hire any help to keep it that way. How do some people have it together like that?

There was something about curated “perfection” that gave me a sense of unease. Like wearing Sunday clothes and fearing I might crease them or stain them. That’s how that dinner felt.

On another occasion, I made an impromptu visit to a new friend’s apartment. I had to drop off some important papers, and she welcomed me with open arms. While the coffee was brewing, she nonchalantly made an “Excuse the mess” remark, and then quickly moved on to other topics.

Her apartment was in a sorry state: there were dishes in the sink, the stove needed a good scrub and her office was barely visible under a pile of documents. Her furniture was old and tired, the entire place looked modest and poor.

Nevertheless, it all felt strangely familiar and almost comforting. I had been in messes like that all through my years in university and then as a young adult, sharing apartments. The mess was intimate, it was a glimpse of their lives, and curiously, because it wasn’t my own, I had zero judgment about it.

I didn’t think she was lazy. She had a husband, two kids, and a dog to take care of, and even as a stay-at-home mom, she didn’t have enough time in the day to keep on top of chores. In fact, all I could think about while visiting her was: “Thank you for showing me your mess. Thanks for not being embarrassed about it.”

Reflecting on these interactions with friends, I realized the people I feel most comfortable with have the same background. They usually grew up in villages, where there’s always a fine balance between mess and cleanliness. Where clean doesn’t mean sterile — just clean enough. They shared crappy apartments all through their young adult lives. They had mismatched plates and cutlery. They were unpretentious all the way, and that’s how I like to live my life.

Our behavior around mess changes with the seasons of life

Many decades ago, a woman’s trajectory in life was very different. Women went from daughters to housewives, without much wandering in between.

I look at my life and see such a winding, sometimes chaotic path. As a child, I had my own room, which I struggled to keep clean and tidy. Folding clothes was not my thing. Neither was putting stuff back where it belonged.

I then moved on to college. I shared a dorm room with three other people and had to contain my mess in my own tiny space. Then came renting, moving in with boyfriends, moving out again. Changing jobs, changing cities.

Each season came with different behaviors around my physical space: I would either hoard clothes or get ruthless and minimalistic. I would be messy for years, only to become an organized neat freak after moving so much and being forced to deal with my stuff.

I have finally settled down (I hope), and I’m learning to be a homemaker. In my mid-thirties. It’s not easy, both my husband and I still embody a frat boy at times, because we’ve spent so much of our lives as single slobs.

My house still oscillates between stuff thrown everywhere and perfect order and cleanliness. It has a lot to do with my state of mind.

Whenever I feel down, anxious, overwhelmed, depressed, my house becomes messy. Even my garden takes a hit. My car fills up with garbage, bills become overdue, my business gets chaotic.

I then either can’t take it anymore or get random bursts of productivity which help me restore my environment to its organized self. I love order, I love cleanliness. I love the calm they instill.

But I am also ready to let go and accept the fact that I can’t keep it that way. It’s just too hard.

Working women should let go of unrealistic standards of cleanliness

We all want the picture-perfect house, the inviting deck, the thriving garden, but they require work. And we already work, a lot.

We put in long hours at our jobs, only to come home and beat ourselves up because we can’t keep on top of it all. We’ve been fed lies all this time, about how things should be.

Men don’t have this problem. They don’t ruminate over daily, weekly and monthly chores that didn’t get done because they have a different standard: clean enough.

Clean enough is infuriating when our partners do chores around the house because it’s tempting to retrace their steps and make it shiny and perfect.

But if we were to adopt this mantra of clean enough — enough to be comfortable, enough to feel at ease — life would get so much easier. We wouldn’t spend weekends in a cleaning frenzy. We’d do a little bit each day and maintain.

Takeaway

There might be people out there already living this way. People who always have their lives together, keep on top of the mess, never procrastinate, always do what needs to be done.

Those are not my kind of people, and I’m pretty sure they’re unicorns.

I’m talking to the people whose outer mess mirrors the inner mess. The people who admit it. I want to thank them for being genuine and tell them we’re on the same journey.

While sorting both physical and spiritual clutter, I want to encourage you not to get overwhelmed. To get moving whenever you feel stuck. To embrace “it’s okay for now”. The house is clean enough, and you’re good enough.