Clutter. It is currently the bane of my existence. I know that sounds dramatic, but it’s true. Clutter is EVERYWHERE. I constantly walk from room to room in my house and sigh on a loop. As I am writing this, there is a pile of mega blocks laying on the floor next to an empty tub. A kid’s chair is haphazardly knocked over and don’t even get me started on the pile of art supplies nearly tumbling off our art cart. And that is just in one area of one room in our whole house. Can I please just snap my fingers like Mary Poppins and everything magically moves to its designated place?
I know what you’re thinking.
Boohoo, you poor thing, clutter is not a problem. There are much worse things in life (especially this year) than having clutter in your home. But that’s the thing. Clutter used to be the thing I could manage when everything else was spinning out of control. This year, I am staying at home with two small children while my husband works remotely during a pandemic. The world is full of clutter, and so is my home.
When my husband and I first moved into our home over five years ago, multiple people asked us why we bought a house with so much space for just two people. Several rooms sat empty for years. Cut to 2020 and we have two small children who use every inch of our house as a play space. And yes, every inch, as I keep finding ball pit balls in the corners of our bathrooms. We have officially grown into this house. So much so that I feel like I’m drowning in stuff. I do the “ten-minute tidy” game and it does give me a momentary sense of having my life together. Then I turn around and it looks worse than it did before. How?! It’s exhausting.
I have mentioned in a previous post that clutter is a huge anxiety trigger for me. It stresses me out and then I start to think of everywhere in my home I need to declutter or clean. And then (because you’ve already gotten a taste at how dramatic I can be) I huff and puff around the house, adding “tension to the air,” as my husband describes it.
To add to that, I married someone who never lets clutter bother him. Ever. His tolerance for cleanliness and clutter is higher than our laundry pile (and that’s pretty darn high), and I’m envious. I wish I could walk through my house and not get itchy at the puzzles collecting dust on our dining table, the pile of too-small clothes in our basement ready to be sorted, or the desk beside our entryway, covered in unread mail and magazines.
Again, I know what you’re thinking.
Just do it, duh. Make a cleaning schedule, make a de-clutter list. It’s not hard. Ha! I think I speak for a lot of stay-at-home moms when I say it is daunting being the sole person (in a house of naturally messy people) who cares about the cleanliness of the home. On top of keeping children entertained, getting them snacks, feeding them bottles, changing their diapers/wiping butts, getting more snacks, the list goes on and on. I barely have time to sit down before I hear “Mom, can I have a snack?” AGAIN. At the end of the day, all I want to do is sit on my couch and drink a glass of wine.
While I sit on my couch at the end of the day, probably watching the Get Organized series on Netflix (because I like to torture myself), I often daydream about being able to take the time to make the house spotless and organized. Then I quickly realize that probably won’t happen until our children are older and they aren’t constantly playing with toys. I’ll miss these days. So until then, I will just try my hardest to keep this ship running the best that I can. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve lost the remote control.
