The Corners

Many of us who clean our own homes are guilty of it: ignoring the corners. We regularly sweep the floors, dust the furniture, scrub down the tubs, showers and sinks, and vacuum the carpets, but we intentionally neglect the places we don’t have to see, or that are hard to reach. The floor underneath the couch, where we know that dust bunnies are multiplying just as their name would imply; the upper corners where the wall and ceiling meet, where minute spiders spin webs to catch even more minute gnats, and then abandon them eventually, leaving a tiny bug cemetery suspended in mid-air; the mildew that accumulates over time in the cracks of the caulking in the shower. We know that these “messes” exist, but we willfully ignore them, until one day, when we finally have some extra time and energy to tackle them, or when we’re just plain sick of ignoring them, we buckle down, move the furniture, grab a step ladder, and have at it. And we feel good when it’s done, because now our house really IS clean.

Today, as I swept the floor and dispatched a stray dust bunny who ventured out from his lair underneath one of the nightstands in my bedroom, I thought about how this same principal often applies to our personal lives.

We go about our day, dealing with the things that are in our face and must be dealt with today: our jobs, paying bills, feeding the family, getting the kids to school, going to the gym. And we ignore the stuff in the shadows: feelings of inadequacy, stifled memories of abuse and neglect, addictions and compulsions, fear of the future or the past.

Maybe we find it easy to ignore these things (like their household, physical counterparts) because no one else can typically see them. When we have guests into our home, we will vacuum the living room carpet, but chances are they’re not going to look under the couch. We’ll clean the toilet, but draw the curtain on the shower. However, on rare occasions a guest might actually notice one of these things and mention it to you.

“Hey there, couldn’t help but notice that you have a mildew problem in your shower. I use Mildew Be Gone for that, you should give it a try, it works great!”

Or…

“Hey, I noticed that you have been missing a lot of work lately, you look like hell, and one of the other employees thought they smelled alcohol on you the other day. If you feel like you need to talk to someone, please let me know”. (I use the alcohol analogy because it's the most familiar to me, running heavily on one side of my family, but you could insert any number of "issues" here...a weight problem, crappy relationships, etc.).

Our response to either of the above situations is likely to be one of three:

• Indignation that someone would dare intrude so blatantly, and subsequent willful denial and refusal to even consider cleaning said area.
• Embarrassment and shame, followed by guilty agreement that something needs to be done, and subsequent half-hearted attempts to clean said area, but not really.
• Honest, shameless and guiltless acceptance that now might be a good opportunity to finally buckle down and clean up this area, not because someone else suggested it but because you’ve known it that it’s needed doing for a long time, and the recommendation by your guest is simply the impetus that you needed to get rolling. Likely followed by real action.

But maybe we ignore these things because we have to. If we spent the time required on a daily basis performing maintenance so that these messes don’t accumulate, well…we’d spend our time doing very little else, wouldn’t we? What enjoyment is there in life if all one does is clean?

So perhaps it’s best to allow the corners to get messy, but to never deny that we know they’re getting that way. To fearlessly and frequently lift up the couch skirt, look at those dust bunnies and say, “Hello, dust bunnies. I’m going to leave you be for now, but don’t get to comfortable because I know you’re there and I will be along to vacuum you suckers up one day soon”.

And eventually…we will.