I struggle with feelings of inadequacy when it comes to how organized and clean my home is. I know I'm not alone in this. It's a frequently discussed topic among women, especially moms. There are books and TV series, reels with 15 second sound bites of tips, and the ever present need to explain or excuse your house if someone comes over.
Many women have expressed to me how highly anxious it makes them to have a messy (I now call "lived-in") house. For some they can't go to bed with a dirty dish in the sink. For others like me, it's when the messes reach a certain tipping point. We all draw the line in different places. To a certain extent that's normal and maybe even human to want some order, but the anxiety seems pervasive and intense for many women, especially if someone else, even a friend sees it.
I once had an eye opening and affirming experience. For purposes of privacy I will keep this vague. There was a mom of a baby and toddler who helped our family out in an urgent situation, very last minute, which meant I was in her home on short notice. I didn't know her very well. As might be expected with a baby and a toddler, the home was very messy. She didn't make any statement explaining or trying to excuse it and I found it refreshing, really refreshing. I admired her solid sense of self. I felt gratitude for how she was helping us.
It also made me feel less alone.
The other day I was reading Michelle Obama's new release The Light We Carry, and the topic of worth and matter against our own standards, not our country's or culture's standards stood out.
Before I share it, I want to note that I believe she was primarily speaking to those who are marginalized and those in minority groups. It spoke to me as a woman and a writer but I want to note that I come from a position of privilege as a white middle class person in a first world country. I want to be clear about that before I share what I personally gleaned from it and how it has helped me to grow.
Ms. Obama writes, " When you start to rewrite the story of not mattering, you start to find a new creative center. You remove yourself from other people's mirrors and begin speaking more fully from your own experience, your own knowing place. ....It's also helpful to acknowledge what makes this work so difficult. We are tasked with trying to write our own script over layers and layers of already written ones. We have to try to put our truth over narratives that have long suggested we don't fit, don't belong or don't register at all. These stories have been enshrined by tradition and cemented in every day life, in many cases forming the literal back drop to our days. They unconsciously shape our conception of both self and other. They purport to tell us who is lesser and who is greater, who is strong and who is weak. They have anointed heroes and established norms: This is who matters. This is what success looks like. This is what doctor looks like, what a scientist looks like, what a mother looks like, what a senator looks like, what a criminal looks like, what a victory looks like... .. It's hard to dream about what's not visible. You can't readily strive toward what you don't see. Rewriting the story of not mattering takes both courage and persistence."
I had an epiphany moment after reading this wisdom that maybe I can rewrite the norms and standards in areas where I have followed our culture's norms without even realizing it and have thus boxed myself in. It spoke to me as a woman and a mother, two roles that have historically not been valued and have been defined by a patriarchal culture.
A clean home means a hardworking and worthy woman/mother in our culture. It's an unspoken standard but it's there. I don't know of many men who grapple with how organized their home is, or at least not to the extent that women do. But maybe crumbs on the floor and dishes in the sink mean hard working and worthy because it was a mother who sat with her child during their emotional meltdown to be present and hold space for those emotions instead of spending that time cleaning.
I also saw my messes through a new lens, a foreign perspective that stunned me. I was in bed journaling when I looked at the mountain high stack of books and notebooks on my dusty nightstand, spilling in an untidy pile on the floor and I realized I was looking at my creativity.
My creative mind was manifesting in the physical world. This is how my creativity fuels. It's in spurts and jolts, in unfinished books and tattered notebooks. It symbolized the looseness, the free associating, the randomness required to fuel creativity. My process has improved as I've allowed not only my physical materials to be messy but also the writing process which can be really ugly and disorganized as it's being birthed. Letting go in other areas of my life (my home, expectations, my perfectionism, to name a few) has allowed my creativity the space it needs and to be accepted as an ugly duckling in the first, second and third draft.
The messy artist is not a new notion. But recognizing it and most importantly accepting it, even loving it was the change in me. Letting go of our culture's standards of tidy and clean equaling acceptable, successful, and worthy.
It begs the question. If a woman is boxed in by those definitions (often unaware), what is being stifled in her? What is being kept from manifesting in the world? For me it's creativity and brainstorming. Maybe the mess represents something else for other women, and frees their minds and activities in other ways. In ways that fully express who they are as a person rather than as a culturally decided definition of a woman who keeps up appearances, has it all together, and knows exactly where everything is for everyone.
There's several other ways that I don't fit in the mold of modern society, some areas that I feel comfortable expressing and others I don't, but didn't realize it until I read this excerpt from Ms. Obama. I didn't realize that it was probably fear of going outside of the norm, of being rejected, or laughed at by the world. But at what cost? I've decided I too want a solid sense of self, much like the glimpse I saw of that mother who greeted me into her messy home.
I'm 41 and this is my midlife epiphany. I will not be stifled by others' opinions that are generated by centuries of cultural ideas that this what it means to "be a woman," "be a mother", "be an artist", be "an anything I discover that I am."
I'm also a never ending work in process and change takes time, so there's a good chance I will clean before you come over but I'm going to incrementally allow you to see more of "me" in the mess and do less, and just maybe you will breathe a sigh of relief and permission.
