Happy New Year?

Well it's here! That day when everyone straps on the good intentions and forges into the new year.  I think this should be called New Clean Slate Day but then I am reminded that every morning when our eyelids open and erase all that was yesterday we are facing another new Clean Slate Day!! Every morning is an opportunity to have a do-over, to try one more time to accomplish, to stop, to try, try again those things that we want.  You know what I want? I want to stop thinking that it is mandatory to have a spotless house and a life in order because we all know unless you live alone that is impossible.  Unless, of course, you are Super Woman and can leap tall piles of laundry in a single bound or you are married to a Rockerfellow!  The problem with me is this: if I can't do it perfectly perfect I will avoid it all together in turn creating more and more chaos and feeling more and more inadequate!! Once I posted on facebook that if you were a person who had a spotless house, your bills were scheduled or paid, your landscaping was impeccable, your pantry was full and your life was running like a well-oiled machine that I hated you!  Truth is I hate you because I am not you!  I don't even think you are real!  You're like a Stepford freak!  Okay, now that's out of the way.

While it would be great to have all those things and revel in them who ever told us our lives had to be that way to be happy!  You know who I admire? Those people whose LIFE takes precedent over their household chores!! I am almost 60 years old and to this day if I had get up on a Saturday morning and go shopping without making my bed and cleaning the kitchen first, I would be miserable all day!!! WHY???? Who cares??  ME, that's who!! Ask Chip & Rachael what I did every weekend of their lives when they were growing up? I cleaned and did laundry and ran errands! It took me years to figure out that I cleaned because,  like those crazy people who try and convince you that exercise makes you feel good, it was something I could (1) control (2) complete and (3) not be judged for. It was 'a good thing' and it was safe!!  No exposure to anything that might be out of my comfort zone, no trying to compete to be the Mom of the Year, Wife of the Year, and so on!! Now I don't want to be that person and today I sit here, again at the computer in my pajamas, and I am convinced that all those weekends since I have been out of my parents house, since I was 18, could have been better spent!  How many weekend jaunts did I miss, how many shopping trips with Rachael, how many movies with Chip, how many romantic dinners with Chuck because I was too busy cleaning!! Does it matter now? Damn straight it does, it matters to me! I wish I could go back and change all that, not that I believe my kids ever wanted for anything but I would like to have been a different Mom, somewhere between June Cleaver and not Rosanne Barr, a more focused Mom, one who didn't think her validity came from having a clean and orderly home!  A fun Mom!!


I know some of you will find it hard to believe but it is hard to change your NATURE - you can change your habits, you can change your attitude but you really can't change your nature. It's that old nature versus nurture thing!!  Nature will get you every time like the snake who bit the woman who nursed him back to life! I mean she knew he was a snake all along, right? Yet, like me, she was still shocked.


So here is my promise to my children, my precious grandchildren, my husband, my friends and my family!! I promise to always try to do the best I can and I promise you I will always fall short of my perfect goal! I promise to be more focused on people and less focused on issues! I promise to love you all with all my heart and I won't fall short there!!  I promise to try and be more spontaneous - but I will need to clean up before I do.