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 �what is Man? a miserable little pile of secrets.� - andr� malraux "i desire to live in peace and to continue the life i have begun under the motto, to live well you must live unseen." - rene descartes note random entry image credit design by : ilazarn ikmal powered by : diaryland |
cleaning house.
2020-01-27 @ 8:35 p.m.
we had the inspections today and i had to go over to my neighbor's place and let the guy in and i was just like wow, it's so messy! like i've written a few times about how i always question my own cleanliness and am so critical of other people's houses (and my own!) because of my OCD mother's training. but man it was just enlightening. i know everyone has their own standards and everything but it makes me feel a little better to know that my place after two weeks of not having been cleaned was still in better shape than neighbor's (when she knew people would be looking through it). being dirty, being messy, being disorganized, being sloppy - those were all a major source of shame and ridicule in my family. my mom was, and still is, absolutely fastidious. cleaning was a huge deal for her - saturday was always "cleaning day" and we weren't allowed to go out or do anything except clean. if we were a little bit messy or left our stuff laying around, my mom would relentlessly tear into us for being disgusting "pigs." sometimes my dad would come to pick us up and my mom would make him wait an hour or more because we had to finish cleaning first. my dad was (and still is) a total flake, so it was partially his fault that our days would get ruined, because he would show up at like noon and my mom would tell him to wait, so he'd go hang out with his cousins or brother or whatever and not come back until like 3, when we were done at 1:30. then we could only hang out 2 hours because he lived 2 hours away and had to get home. i was always so excited for - but also dreaded, in equal part - the weekends, because the stars might align and i'd have a nice weekend with my dad, away from my mother, or it would be a day of slaving away, polishing brass knobs on furniture we never used just to inconvenience my dad, then ending up having to forego the movie we'd planned, and going to the china buffet real quick before he had to leave and not see us again for a few months. two incredibly selfish people, and two incredibly lonely children. i told boy about this, and he knew how my mom was after knowing her for 8 years. near the end of the relationship he insulted my cleanliness and i was so fucking triggered by it. people use that word too freely these days but i really mean it. i only heard my mother, calling me a pig. boy had said so many fucked up, terrible things to me over the years, but when it came out of his mouth was the only time i had ever just replied, "hey, fuck you." boy and little A fucking destroyed my house and just bailed on it. how fucking dare he say that to me. i always kept it so nice the first few years, but boy's spending started getting so out of control, little A was always told to pick up his own shit and just wouldn't do it, and after a while i decided i wasn't going to clean up after them and that made the whole house look horrible. i was so ashamed of it because i knew how messy it was but i didn't think it was fair that i had to do 100% of all of the cleaning for 3 people. after boy left, and after best friend left, i started hoarding a little and stopped cleaning completely. all of my things started breaking one right after the other and i was just so hopeless and depressed. i would sit there and just think about him, how he left me with nothing but his fucking trash. when he moved out he took only what he wanted, and left the rest for me to take care of. he kept saying, yeah i'll come and clean out the rest. yeah i'll come and spackle the holes little A made in the walls. yeah, sure. like so many other promises he made, they were just jokes that i fell for. that was such a dark time in my life. i didn't write much about it here because i was so ashamed of what i had become. what i had allowed to happen to me. who the fuck could be so stupid? oh that's right, me. there were nights i sat in that trash filled house, just me and my little baby boy, with no air conditioning in the august heat, then no electricity, then no hot water. i was squatting in my own house that i had once been so proud of, while this motherfucker is enjoying himself, eating a $70 sushi dinner in his condo that he decorated to look exactly like my house. (did i ever even mention that here, or did i think it was too fucking weird to write about? yeah, he painted the rooms the same, same carpets, even bought the same bed and an extremely similar duvet cover.) and then, when i was moving out, too ashamed of how fucking filthy it was because i had just given up on life, i couldn't ask anyone to help me clear out all of his shit, so i did it myself. night after night of filling fucking garbage bags full of his unopened mail, his purchases that he had never even opened up and taken out of the box, his fucking clothes, shit from his storage unit that he decided he didn't want. it almost feels like it wasn't even real, but it was. it was too fucking real, even now. i can still feel the anger coming over me as i type this. during that period is when i realized that i would rather be alone for the rest of my life than ever let anyone make me feel like that again. when i finally had thrown everything out, and packed up and put away everything that belonged to me and was essential, there were two weeks or so of intense regret that i had to leave my house. there was nothing i could do at that point, but it looked so good, so clean, like it did before boy came into my life. it was so neat and i was so proud of myself again, both because it was clean and because i had done it all by myself. that's when i decided i'd never let my apartment get like that. and after 3 years here, it looks just as great as it did when i moved in. today, the inspector said that my unit is the nicest that he has ever seen in this building. i don't want to tie my self worth to how orderly my home is or anything but it's so ingrained in me that it's hard not to. i felt so proud of myself, and so silly at the same time. who cares? what does it really matter in the long run? but it makes me feel good, and i guess, in some strange way i'm still trying to make my mother proud. today was day 1 at the other place. was busy nonstop. had to spend a half hour on the phone with a customer who didn't understand that just because a payment was made two months after the due date, it doesn't mean that the two payments that were due in interim just disappear. just for example. he owes $200 a month. his payment was due sept 14, 2019. he made a payment of $150 on nov 18, 2019, and a $140 one on dec 12, 2019, and then hasn't made another one since. he was absolutely shocked and appalled to hear that his current due was a little over $600. it was also delightful to hear that he always pays in full on time every month, so there must be something wrong with my computer. yes, let me check my hard drive. oh, what are these? the collections letters i have to send you every month to get you to call in a partial payment. come on, dude. also, i slept terribly last night. i almost always have trouble sleeping when i know i have to wake up by an alarm the next day. the last two hours i always lay awake just waiting for the alarm, and panicking that i'm going to sleep through it so i shouldn't sleep at all. that's my usual experience. this morning, i woke up to terrible cramps at fucking 6:30am, which were awesome, so i got up and took some medicines and smoked some weed and had that weird kind of twilight sleep that you can get with some strains. the great part was that my cramps went away quickly and completely. the bad part is that i am now exhausted. well, it was nice to spend this entire evening with you, to work through some bad thoughts. i spent a lot of time thinking about PM on saturday and about how i really like him and think he's cute but i realized i still have a lot to work through. still a little a n g e r y but doing my best. ready to snuggle the fuck out of my wonderful bed. i am rewarding myself in small ways for this week. on friday i'm ordering myself $125 worth of candles because, well, i love candles, but also the wonderful smell of my home makes me super happy and is another thing i'm proud of. then i will order sushi for dinner. it's going to be great. this entry was probably everywhere but it's been knocking around in there all day and i am happy to have released it in some form. i have a lot of things to say about boss too, but, that's always for another day, isn't it. |