But regardless of your level of start fresh mania, whether you plan to rid yourself of everything you’ve collected and ignored for the last year or  you’re going all in on Crossfit and wheatgrass shots, or you are more of a “please-feel-free-to-dump-all-of-your-unused-snacks-butter-and-ice-cream-at-my-house-because-I’m-an-awesome-friend-for-removing-temptation-you’re-welcome kind of person,” by the time the holidays come and go, the new year is in full swing, most of us are just done.  So, very done. 

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As women, we tend to carry the weight of these big celebrations and all the expectations, overstimulated kids, the planning, the cooking, the clean-up and all of that special magic everyone loves.  And as much as I want someone to help me, I’m honestly usually so far behind chasing the eventual end of my to-do lists that I couldn’t tell you what day it is, much less know how to wrangle the chaos enough to speak in coherent sentences.  My husband WANTS to help.  But he doesn’t want to do something that I would have done differently.  My regular, everyday anxiety is able to handle divvying up tasks.  However, my special occasion “fresh start” anxiety fries some internal circuit board in my head and trying to think of things that I need help with may very well be the straw that broke the camel’s back. 

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I know this.  My husband knows this.  You’d think one of us would have taken some notes in the last 18+ years we’ve spent together and maybe planned our things-we-needed-to-do-all-year-but didn’t to do lists during a less “magical” time, like March. But now that it’s March, I probably don’t have any more time than I did three months ago, so we probably just need a more adulty person in charge. But apparently we are the grown-ups and have to figure it out on our own.

 

Now, despite the list of things we never get done, we still try to make sure to engage in some form of the magic in the little, seemingly inconsequential things that mean so much.  Like when my husband makes time for me to watch all of the musicals I love and never get to watch, since my people do not like watching anything in which singing and dancing can and will break out at any time. This is actually one of those intentional things my husband does that makes me love him even more and feel cared for.  He’s also endured Rent, White Christmas, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Hamilton like a thousand times and many more that I’m sure he’s tried to block from his memory.  He hates that stuff.  My kids are also not fans. 

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“Why do they sing in the hallway and the bathroom?  Why don’t they talk like normal people?  No one dances and sings mid conversation,” they say, which they know isn’t true because I’m their mom and I’ve been breaking out into random song and dance any and everywhere (though mostly contained to kitchens, bathrooms and cars) since long before they came along and I’ve almost perfected the embarrassment. 

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And it’s a “gentle” reminder that for years, they regularly pointed rudely at people in the grocery store, loudly asking why that lady has a mole on her face like Nanny McFee, while I tried to hide behind the chip display.  So yes, Mom will absolutely dance in the car, sing through the aisles of Target and blast 90’s hip hop in the carpool line.  Because I can.  And because revenge is sweet.  #sorrynotsorry

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And I make sure that during football season, my husband gets to scream loudly at the TV every weekend and has all of the soda and snacks to keep his energy high enough to continue the screaming at the refs who can’t hear him.  Because football is sacred.  We also have pizza for dinner way more than any normal family because pizza is his love language and we do what we have to do for the people we love….even eat too much pizza regardless of lactose intolerance bodily functions that half of the people in our house torture me with.

 

Too much information? You’re welcome and welcome to my life.

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You know what?  I’ve come to love all of these things.  Minus the lactose fallout, of course. We may be a mess.  We may never actually get our curtains washed or remember to dust the stupid fans.  We’ll likely always have dirt on the floors from the dogs that no amount of vacuuming will ever keep up with.  We’ll never ever be done with laundry or dishes and no matter how many times I watch Marie Kondo, I will never be a minimalist, because if I get rid of everything that doesn’t bring me joy, there won’t be anything left but the dogs to run the house.  So I’m working on accepting the clutter, and the dirt and never ending to-do lists and try to remember that when I’ve lived a full life and I’m ready to leave this world, I won’t be wishing I’d kept things cleaner or kept up with the laundry.  Because I refuse to leave this world with regrets, like  wishing that I’d spent more time with the people that I love. I don’t want to look back over my life and wish I’d loved better and bigger. 

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So this spring, while everyone is washing curtains and washing their windows, I’m going to try to pay more attention to my kids’ laughter, and the way my husband’s eyes light up when he gets too excited to give a gift to wait until an actual special occasion and not just a random Tuesday.  Because these are the things that bring me joy and, to borrow one of the repetitive lines in the Bible, joy begets joy begets joy and on and on.  And I want to “beget” joy and hope and laughter for my husband and my kids and anyone else I come into contact with. 

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So that’s our spring cleaning this year.  We’re spring cleaning our hearts instead of our homes.  And just maybe, that’s the kind of clean-up we’ve needed, and with enough work, it will be the kind of cleaning that lasts so that when we look back over our lives we can count the blessings that matter.  Each other. 

 

“I make no secret of the fact that I would much rather lie

on the couch than clean underneath it.”

Shirley Conran