It ain't pixie dust

This weekend my home let out a deep, tired sounding sigh. It was held for a long while and was lined with contentment. For all intensive purposes it is nothing more than a brief pause between married life with teenagers in the home and married life without teenagers in the home and I spent much of the first and second day cleaning off the teen spirit that is all over everything with 409. I washed it away. For hours I worked filling garbage bags; plastic gloves on, the shop vac whirring and suddenly I was that compulsive cleaner I had been way back when. But not entirely.

When my husband was in lock up, when he did not come home for days at a time due to drinking binges the cleaning bug took hold of me and I cleaned with a fury that was just not human. I let the anger and resentment fuel my frenzy and would not stop until I was a sopping, wet, heap of exhausted woman. Usually that is when the crying began and washed it all away for that episode.

Cleaning is not something I have ever considered therapeutic but more I view it as a necessary task that has to get done. I recognize that when I cleaned with a frenzy, way back when it was my own attempt at controlling something, anything, since I felt so out of control. This last time though was remarkably different and I can only compare it to nesting. The kind of cleaning you do before you have the baby. I did this with both of my boys and it felt similar to this last weekend. It is done with an excited energy that I can only describe as opportunity. As if the world (home) is my canvas and suddenly I am an artist and I can’t help but to feel creative or maybe renewed because of it.

My boys are with my dad for three whole weeks and I am grateful that he agreed to take them for so long . My need for a break had been overwhelming and the fork in the cleaning road of my home only made me more difficult to be around. The choice was leave the place a teenage dump and ignore it, while living in my bedroom only or, send the boys away and clean. I am glad I no longer deny and avoid things that make my life difficult and I am also looking forward to missing my boys, but that part has not happened yet. *grin*

My husband thinks that this is an “empty nester” in training test for us and I think he is fearful of the 'honey-do' list I have made for him, but this will be a good time for us to see how well we work on things by ourselves and I am frankly excited about the change and the newness of what this offers.