Life happens here in the midst of the mess
My dentist offered a piece of marriage advice that has stuck with me for many years. He was the sort of dentist who always chatted and offered fatherly advice at each visit. That day, just a few weeks from my upcoming wedding, he chuckled and said, “you’ve got to keep your conveyors moving to keep a happy house and a happy marriage.” He explained that the simple act of moving something out of place closer to where it belongs goes a long way.
Even if the laundry doesn’t get put away, if the basket makes it closer to the closet you are moving in the right direction. For the first few years of our marriage my husband and I would remark to each other that it was time to move our conveyors. We’d bustle around the house putting everything back in its rightful place. Then we had children. I think it is safe to say that even the most organized and tidy amongst us can feel bogged down by keeping up with the ever present clutter that children create.
Each age and stage brings a unique level of disorder. For new moms there are bottles and pump parts, endless laundry and diaper bags to be stocked and restocked. Toddler tornados leave toys and dishes and shoes and spoons and anything else that they can get their sticky little hands on spread around the home. When they enter school age, they may get better at putting things away and helping to manage their mess, but they also bring in piles of artwork, permission slips and beloved creations of Legos or Magnatiles or Gravitrax that they simply CANNOT let you break down because they worked so hard. I have yet to hit the teenage years with my kids but I’m going to go out on a limb and say that they are perhaps not a breed that will always ensure their clothes are in the hamper and the shoes in a straight line by the door.
These days, when I tell the family it is time to move our conveyors I chuckle a little inside. In part because I’m disillusioned to believe that anyone else cares as much as I do about regaining order, but also because as I move my conveyors around the house bringing things to their proper places, my small humans promptly bring new things out and clutter new spaces. My husband continues to be helpful, but somehow the two of us are not as fast as the two of them. There is always a playroom to be tidied, a closet that needs to be swapped out for a new size or a new season, a beach bag that needs to be unpacked, a car that needs to be vacuumed.
Social media is good at letting us believe that if we build the perfect mudroom or add a beautiful “command station” to our home we’ll magically be able to keep everything neat and tidy. The pinterest pictures of organizational hacks have me ogling over expertly put together homes without an ounce of detritus scattered about. On the darkest days I feel like I don’t do enough or work hard enough to keep up and have a space like that.
And then, I come back to reality and realize that my house is in need of constant movement because life happens here. I may long for my home to look as though no one lives in it but, I also deeply and wholeheartedly want the people who live here to actually do some living.
I want their friends to come over and play and I want them to eat popsicles even if it means sticky fingers. I want them to play games and forget to put them away, create lego structures and make art and music and find joy in the messy parts of life. I’m quite sure that all too soon I’ll crave their clutter and chaos in the same way I craved their newborn snuggles as they grew into bigger kids.
These days are a gift. An overwhelming and overstimulating gift that I’ll forever romanticize because this crazy season lets me know that life happens here. And the life that is happening is pretty sweet, even when it’s messy.
