However You Are Able

It is a constant frustration in my life that I want to get things done but do not have the energy to do the things. I want to have a clean and tidy home, that looks the way I want it to look, and feels warm and welcoming and comfortable. I want a place for everything and everything in its place. I want a “quick tidy up” to actually be a quick tidy up and not a slog to get things to a vaguely satisfactory level of tidy that doesn’t make me cringe with embarrassment whenever people come over.

However, as mentioned many a time before, I have health issues that mean I am often unable to do a lot in one go. So, when I have a bad month, or two, or ten, my home becomes a place I no longer enjoy inhabiting. The mess piles up and all my energy goes to keeping it so that it is safe and clean enough to live in. I do not feel good about this, but sometimes that is just how it is.

There is one thing that makes life a lot harder in this situation, and that is the “you should do it like this” type of comments and thinking. The world is a very judgy place sometimes. My brain is an extremely harsh critic too.

Example. You go to the loo and whilst you are there you notice that the toilet could use a clean. Great. The bleach is very conveniently placed right by the bog. All you need to do is pick it up and squirt it round the bowl and let it sit for a bit…but best go for that wee first, it is why you are there after all. OK so you did what you needed, flushed the toilet, now you can use the bleach and carry on with your day having cleaned something. Perfect. But “you should wait until the water has completely settled before using the bleach, otherwise it wont clean everywhere around the bowl.” OK, fine, I will come back in a bit and do it...but you forget or get distracted by something else or, you know, life happens. So, the next time you return to the bathroom you have this entire event take place again. And you leave to give the water a chance to settle, and you forget again, and you return again, and it starts all over again…again.

Sometimes, sometimes it is better just to put the bleach in the toilet when you are there and actively thinking about putting bleach in the toilet. It doesn’t have to be best moment for a toilet to be cleaned, it just has to be a moment for the toilet to be cleaned. Just clean your damn toilet when you remember to clean it.

I think we get so caught up in wanting to do things right, that sometimes it leaves us in a position where we can’t do anything at all. It is occasionally worth forgoing the perfection and accuracy and just getting stuff done.

My brain can scream at me all it likes about how yoghurt pots should be washed out before they are gotten rid of and each one should be checked to see if they are recyclable even though this is never clear and I am permanently confused by what ones are recyclable and which are just made of recycled material and if those can again be recycled.

Or how if you are going to clean the kitchen counter you should clean the hob too, even though that requires a different cleaning product that you know is under the sink somewhere, but keeps hiding from you, so you end up giving up and thinking you will get back to it later when you have more energy, but you don’t get more energy, but the counter still needs cleaning and the product for that is right in front of you, so JUST CLEAN THE COUNTER!!! Ugh.

Do what you can, when you can, how you can. Doing things the “right” way is wonderful when you have the time and the energy to do it. The only real “wrong” way of doing things is, really, to not do it at all. Just get it done in whatever way you can.

Getting something done is better than not getting anything done. Even if it is not done in the way I wish I could get it done, I feel better that is has been done at all. 

At least I have a clean toilet now.

JT