I did a really crazy thing the other day: I actually invited people to come to my house.

So I’m having a housework weekend.

Honestly I’m not that worried about it. Or at least I’m trying to not be that worried about it. But I’m working through issues my parents have piled upon me and it takes time, a lot of time. Decades even.

My mother tries to be helpful. She says, “Your house is fine, really. I mean, I couldn’t live like that, but if it doesn’t bother you guys, it’s fine.” My father simply says, “Your house is a mess.” My stepmother just sits quietly and doesn’t say anything.

I’ve come to realize after many years of introspection and visits to other people’s houses that mine isn’t so bad. Actually, mine is pretty much somewhere in the middle between the neat freaks and the people who don’t care at all. My view is skewed just a little bit. My Dad is a neat freak who had the good sense to marry two women (in succession) who were also very neat. My step mom is neat. My mother is OCD neat. One of my brothers inherited the neatness, the other the OCD neatness. I had the cleaning urge burnt out of me at an early age. (Must have been because I was the girl.) We don’t have family gatherings here, ever.

What my house has is clutter, the normal everyday clutter that comes with living in it with kids. I pick up the gross messes right away (as long as I see them right away.) The piles of kids toys and the newspapers V leaves around may sit awhile. Smelly dirty laundry goes, the clean dishtowels RM likes to pull out and drag around stay. The dishes get washed daily, the dust hangs out awhile.

So yes, I’m going to do some cleaning this weekend. We are overdue for a toy purge (look out Freecycle, here I come.) If I don’t rearrange some furniture at least every 6 months or so I get bored. I have a bathroom used by two teenage boys and one man; enough said. But I’m not going to let it make me crazy. I’m not. No really, I’m not.