Within minutes after we
have all gasped for our first breath, many of us were laid on our
mother's breast, and some voice in the background said, “Okay, get
the baby cleaned up”. Thus, we are all imprinted with the lifelong
concept of, “Being clean must be good, being messy must be bad”as
well as the guilt associated with it.
How often have we said,
“Sorry, I am not feeling well, why don't you stop over next
Wednesday?” when we really mean is, “The place looks like a
tornado right now, it will take me about a week to get it in
order..maybe another time?”. Far be it for us to actually apologize
for the way the house or garage looks, as to do so would be like
wearing a sign on our back that says, “My name is Judy. I am a
Slob”.
I believe the only homes
that are the epitome of neatness and order are the ones that are
listed for sale, and the homes owned by DINKS, you know, Double
Income, No Kids”. I once had a gentleman friend compliment me on
my home as he said, “it looks lived in, not everything is
perfect”..talk about a left handed compliment! At least he did not
suggest I audition for “Hoarders”.
Surprisingly, I have seen
more untended yards, and homes in disrepair owned by engineers than
you could imagine. My theory on this is that after spending 40+
hours a week being so precise and perfect, all is forgotten once said
person walks in the front door. Being messy at home is the way
engineers must relax, because they sure as hell are not found at the
Crown Pub during happy hour. Unfortunately, keeping the home in
order usually falls to the spouse or significant other that also
lives in the home, unless of course, they are BOTH engineers, and,
oh, I do not want to even go there. You may think I am making this
up, but I have lived next door to several engineers, and while they
are not ALL slobs, lots of them fall into this messy lifestyle I
described. Some are definitely neat-nicks (more on neat nicks to
follow). On a personal level, as a former pharmacist, I had to make
sure EVERYTHING and I mean EVERYTHING was correct before it left my
hands(that's the Yin part of me). Yes, I am probably a bit OCD, but
wouldn't you rather have a pharmacist like that than one that checks
stuff faster than the speed of light? After a long day of saving
lives, I came home and threw my work clothes on the floor (that was
the Yang part of me).
For those of us that are
“borderline messies” as I call them, we are probably considered
pretty normal. We all have occasional dirty dishes in the sink, pile
of dirty laundry in undisclosed areas of the home, undusted
furniture, unvaccumed carpets, unwashed windows, and family
“treasures” cluttering up the garage or basement. If we have
kids at home, our demands that they “clean their room” is met
with very passive aggressive resistance, which means, they just don't
do it. .
I have two sons, whom will
be called, Yin and Yang, lovingly, after their mother. In their
youth, Yin, my neat-nick, anally retentive oldest son had a room
that was spotless, bed always made, orderly bookshelves. He did have
a huge King Snake in an impeccably clean old aquarium, which
interested all the neighborhood boys when its monthly feeding of live
mice came due. He liked snakes because they were neat and clean. And
the neighborhood boys always said “Neat” when he was fed. Yang,
his younger brother, never cared if his dirty clothes were on the
floor, toys in every corner, homework papers scattered and dog-eared.
Most of all, Yang was never threatened or intimidated by his
brother's sense of order, but it bothered Yin to have to even step
foot in Yang's room. His one claim to neatness fame was that he
always cleaned his plate. I closed both of their doors at an early
age. As adults, Yin is a software engineer/web developer, still runs
a neat household, but has one messy closet. Yang is a hardware
technician, still a bit on the messy side, but always cleans his
plate.
True geniuses are notorious
for having sloppy desks. Mark Twain and Steve Jobs kept very messy
desks, but that did not mean they were not organized, as a true
sloppy desk person knows where everything is located in the mess.
Albert Einstein was the ultimate example of that concept. His desk
and office were said to be a “disaster”, and when once asked
about this, he replied “If a cluttered desk is the sign of a
cluttered mind, then what are we to think of an empty desk?”
The most obvious example of
this concept is shown in Americana. Charles Schultz created the most
wonderful characters in his famous comic strip, “Peanuts”. I am
sure, we all identified with at least one of his people, whether it
be Know-It-All Lucy, poor picked on Charlie Brown, musically inclined
Schroeder, or, yes, you guessed it, Messy Pig-Pen. Movies showed
brilliant, crazy scientists creating their masterpieces in messy
labs, like Dr Frankenstein and the most famous, Professor Brown in
Back to the Future. So many heavy metal bands are, for lack of a
better word, disgustingly dirty, messy and sloppy...all the way to
the bank, just like Jackson Pollack and his "messy" paintings.
Relationships can be messy.
Marriage, parenthood, divorce, illness...these can all be horrible
messes. Some of us get through it, some do not. Learning to live with
these adult messes makes dealing with a dirty kid's room......wait
for it...Child's Play. When you run into an old friend and you ask,
“So how are things with the family?” and they answer, “Oh, God,
it is such a mess!”, you know they are not talking about the
kitchen and family room. Funny how maturity changes our perception of
what defines, “Messy”
The point of this entire
discussion is that Messiness, like Neatness, is a fact of life. We
all have a little of both in our lives, no matter how hard we try to
argue to the contrary. Human condition seems to “praise” one
trait, while “chastising” the other, without realizing that being
a messy person or one that has dealt with messes, may actually be a
good thing.
As we age and the kids move
out, we are often said to suffer from “empty nest” syndrome. Gone
are the family meals at night, the sports equipment in the garage,
the drone of video games, horrible music, tv shows of questionable
quality, dirty socks, those dirty bedrooms, school functions, and
sleepovers. Yes, the little birdies have grown up and flown off to
be on their own, creating their own messes in life, some far more
serious than others, but hopefully messes that are positive,
tolerable, and memorable.
I was going to clean off my
desk today, but I changed my mind.
