All Hail the Goddess (or I swear my house is not a pigsty)

I stand in the middle of my castle and have myself a look around. What I see astounds me and overwhelms me. (no. not the awesome split layout of it.) (no. not the Elphaba-green walls.) (not the sheer mass of square footage per capita, either.)

On the seat of my recliner, which reclines atop a $$$$ and heavily stained rug (which we got gratis when M worked at a home interior company), sits a basket full of bunched up, clean colored clothing. (Yes, "colored" is a big deal because it's the load I put off until I can fetch it fresh from the dryer to immediately hang it up because I'm anti-ironing.)

Across from the recliner sits a pile of my shoes. Not all of them, mind you. The rest are in piles on the floor of my closet. We've started taking off our shoes upon entry into the house, but have never actually had the time to establish the "entryway" we envision will at some point be next to the garage door entrance. The area where we currently dump everything when we walk in is the large, low, square goodwill-find "coffee" table, which just seems to collect every odd and end in the house, which we then try to shove as far as possible to the other end in order to have a place to eat.

The sink is overflowing with dishes, some of which I'm quite sure have the same water used to "soak" them on Sunday afternoon after M made pancakes for dinner at my request. Blech! The counters have piles of mail that I'm so over trying to open. The floors have the silty, scratchy feel of dirt. . . oh, wait. . . that IS dirt! Brought in by the dogs who love to run figure 8s around our newly planted treets, resulting in more dirt than is normal or healthy. (Can we scratch the taking-off-the-shoes-upon-entering-the-house routine now?) There is also a thickening-as-we-speak layer of dust gathering on the dining room table we never use (hence the stained $$$$ rug in the living room).

In my bedroom is another basket of clean laundry, oh and another pile of clean laundry on my cedar chest because we needed a basket for the other clean laundry. Clutter here, dust there - oh, and clothes hung on the top bar of the closet waiting for me to sew a button or a hem, thus dwindling our wardrobes down to odds and ends - what, with everything else in baskets and such.

And then there's M's bathroom, which isn't clean, but of which I'm sort of envious because the shower is clean. My shower, on the other side of the split plan house, is not so clean. I asked him the other day "wow! how is your shower so clean??" He said "because I cleaned it". Hmmmm. Wish I'd have thought of that. Mine hasn't been cleaned in. . . too many months to count right now. On the other hand, I see all his thick, black hair on the floor (please don't be going bald from stress or from a sickness caught from the filth of our house), so maybe I'm not all that envious after all.

Add to this the OCD inducing news M shared with me the other day. Something about the large percentage of fecal matter found on keyboards. I don't know about you, but I tend to touch the keyboard and then. . . oh, everything else. (Bloggers: go wash your hands! Like NOW! and then wash the keyboard. I'll wait.)

[commence elevator music]

*sigh*

I guess what I'm saying is I'm no domestic goddess. Yes, I've cooked dinner every night this week, among various other things. But for crying out loud, can someone just get me a Stepford wife already!???! Is that too much to ask?

Fight. Pray. Love. (or God Must Be Amused)

I stormed out of the house. Slammed the door good and hard, with extra emphasis on the slamming part just for good measure. To show him how mad I really was. I hightailed it out to the car, lest he come after me and try to stop me. He didn't.

I started the car and tried to ignore the voice in my head asking me "where are you going to go?" I knew I couldn't go to my parents house. Or his parents house. I'd seen WAY too many fights between my parents which extended the bounds of our small, four-walled house and lassoed in my grandparents, to know better. (And don't even get me started on the physical altercations and visits from police officers.)

So. Where to go. . . Parents' houses? Out. Siblings' houses? Out. Friends? No. This is a private matter. (I'd also seen how fights paraded in the public arena of family scrutiny forever tainted that family's view of the offending spouse - without the grand benefit of seeing the "making it all better" part.) Suddenly, the mantra "I will not repeat the relationship mistakes of my parents" was pounding through my head.

I was a woman alone. And really, really mad. Furious and sad. In my car. With nowhere to go.

So.

I drove without destination.

Then, I drove to the church parking lot.

And prayed.

And went back home. And we made it all better.

A few years later when our inactive neighbor and her bad news boyfriend were beating the crap out of each other and yelling obscenities which wafted on the cool breeze into our open window, panic gripped me instantly and I ran to the other room to M's side and in a suddenly high-pitched, scared voice said, lamely, "they're fighting!"

I've reflected on this many times since then. I've decided that I ran to his side that night for comfort. And for reassurance that I have not, in fact, repeated the mistakes of my parents. Sure, we've had knock-down-drag-outs of the verbal variety, and said words we were later ashamed of. We average one of those about once every 1.8 years. We've even had one of our worst fights EVER in front of our friends - I don't recommend it. Sometimes, though I find myself disagreeing with M more vehemently in front of friends than I normally would, in an effort to show them (and maybe myself) - God knows why - that we can agree to disagree, rise above the conflict, and be a-okay.

The three times I've ever left the house in a rage (I've done all the leaving during these episodes - though in the fight in front of our friends I locked him out of the house and stayed) I've always ended up the same place. Doing the same thing. And I always come back and we make it better.

Mostly I've learned that it's sometimes enough to not repeat the mistakes of our parents. When it comes to family relationships, sometimes that's all we can do. But sometimes, it might not enough. Because those times are still VERY scary for me.

I've learned that someone has to be the bigger person and avoid the pitfalls of those ugly fights by not going down the road marked "Skirmish Ahead" and by choosing an alternate detour as soon as the road gets the littlest bit bumpy. Hopefully this means I'll leave less often in the future. Or maybe I'll just slam the door less hard on my way out.

I'm just grateful that I can go to the church parking lot, turn off the car engine, cry, pray, ignore the ringing cell phone until I've purged my soul of the anger, then call him up a different woman and say "I'm on my way". And know that I am. I'm on my way.

Superhero Tuesday (or Men Are NOT the Enemy)

Hub called me last Monday and dove right into the conversation with an accusation. "Do ALL women believe their husbands are imbeciles???"

*awkward pause*

"Ummmm" I say, "well, some women just, well um, get worked up about things like toothpaste and toilet paper rolls and garbage. I guess. Why??"

"All the women at work talk about their husbands like they're complete idiots, like they're a fourth child, like it's just easier when they're not around. Do you feel that way?"

"Ummmmm" I say, "well I think that you know when I'm struggling and you take up the slack, and I know when you're struggling and I take up the slack."

"Like what kind of slack do you take up?"

"Ummmmmmmmm. . ."

--------

It's been several years now since I issued the official declaration in my house: "There is only room for ONE superhero in this house, and I'M HER!"

Following Monday's very stilted and shady conversation, in which I desperately wanted to tell him "no honey. not all women think their husbands are complete morons", I had a day that has since become known as Superhero Tuesday.

On said Tuesday, I got up early and packed M's lunch - a toasted tuna sandwich on wheat with green leaf lettuce, some baby carrots, and a red apple - then I got ready for work and got there 10 minutes earlier than normal. I stayed on task pretty well while at work (which means I tried not to be too distracted by visions of sneaking out early and spending a few hours alone in the bookstore running through my head).

Then, at lunch, I stopped by the store to get grated parmesan cheese and cash. Then I went home and made myself something to eat, fed the dogs, vacuumed half the house, pulled the bedding off the guest bed and pulled all the bathroom rugs up and pulled M's shower curtain down and got them ready for the wash.

I came home after work and immediately started water boiling for ravioli, started some edamame in the pressure cooker, and began vacuuming again - including the bathroom vents and some of the baseboards and window sills - pulled the dogs' bedding and stuck it in the wash.

Meanwhile, M put the ravioli in the pan and finished cooking it. Then made himself a plate and put regular parmesan - not the freshly grated stuff I bought (even though I had told him that's why I bought it) - on his raviolis and began to eat. Because I was vacuuming, the edamame were oversteamed.

After eating, I went and got groceries, came home and carried them ALL in myself and put them away. I did the dishes and wiped the counters. I packed M's lunch for the next day, swapped out more laundry, ironed a shirt for M and set out his clothes for the next day (every time I do this - about once a week lately - the words "my wife dresses me" go through my head), laid down makeshift bedding for the dogs while theirs was in the wash, washed my own brown feet (filthy from walking around on unmopped floors), and wrote about Superhero Tuesday in my journal. All the while, sick M slept on the couch.

Let me just say this kind of day is rare. (And even that would be an understatement.)

However, the fact that I do 3 tasks for M's 1 is just the way it is.

Does that make him a moron? Does that make him inept? An imbecile? Lazy?

None of the above.

He's a man. As such, he's not into the details as much as I am. As such, he can't multi-task like I can. I'm a superhero!

Many men are married to superheroes and they will never be able to catch up with us. We can't help it and neither can they. They still think they are smart and fabulous and that our superhero powers are the result of the "push" our bodies have because of the antibodies our bodies are pumping out in a desperate attempt to fight off the cold he's already come down with.

That's just the way it is. Don't be hatin'!