Clarity

Since I've become a wife, I've learned a lot about cleanliness.

For instance, I've learned that my mom must have been cleaning non stop to keep our house as clean as it always was while I was growing up. In fact, now that I think of it, she was cleaning a lot of the time....and often asking me to keep my room or the bathroom clean...which I mostly neglected to do. On those two points I feel I need to say to my mom: Thank you, and I'm sorry I was such a mess!

However, this entry isn't actually just about cleaning. How very tiresome that would be for you all! (Sorry...I'm reading Jane Austen....) So, just hang in there through the next couple of paragraphs....

Since I have a very important guest coming in a few days, I've decided to give the house a good pre-winter clean. Yesterday, it was the kitchen. I emptied all the cupboards, re-organized and made room for some wedding gifts which had been hanging around awkwardly, bleached the counters and tiling, scrubbed down all the doors and shelves, etc. The area that struck me, however, was the space between the cupboards and the ceiling. A very functional space, acting as a shelf to store the large awkward appliances like the steamer and food processor, but altogether neglected in my daily wipe down of the kitchen.

Yesterday, however, I removed all the clutter to find the most DISGUSTING, dusty, sticky residue lining the top of the cupboards. In order to clean it, I had to climb up on and kneal on the hard counter for half an hour and scrub. It was dirty. It was uncomfortable. It was painful. Now? It's clean.

All of this cleaning has got me thinking. For most of us, keeping our house or our room tidy is something we just do. You don't really have to think about it....you just live your life and tidy up along the way. But how often do we really clean?

What if we're living our lives that way? We try to stay satisfied, "tidy" ,if you will. It's fairly easy to do. Every once in a while we feel a bit down or we have questions, so we pull it together....but what about under the furniture? What about the hard questions?

What does my life mean? Have I really found what I'm looking for? Am I really fulfilled? Am I taking things for granted?

It's so much easier if we're feeling a bit down or frustrated or confused to sit down with an episode of friends, or a nice cocktail, and just ignore the problem.

I think, by now, you've probably guessed my point. The same way it's important to really clean the house every once in a while, it's important for us to take stock of our lives....our emotions....our questions. Really, sit down, on your own and think. It might be painful. It might be dirty. But, in the end, it's the only way we will ever truly understand ourselves. It's the only way we can have clarity.