I read this influencer thing about “elevating the everyday,” and I had to chuckle. Umm, not me. It’s more like I’m stealing home everyday… or at least most days.
I’m going to be completely honest here: there are days I have it all together, my house is perfectly clean, I’ve made a special meal and created an environment for us to relax and just enjoy our lives. Those are very rare days indeed. Most days? I come in screaming hot, sideways with my hair on fire. I get it delivered just in time to take a breath, have a glass of wine and start the next day’s processes – all with the goal of someday “getting ahead.” That’s what makes it feel like I’m always stealing home. I mean, I’m just barely getting there before someone tags me out.
As I’ve pivoted back to work since the new year, it occurs to me how much I have yet to put back together from renovations. Today was a downpayment on those efforts. Today, I did the professional girl’s tasks along with the “tradwife” tasks. I created a go-forward template for some grant writing I need to do, communicated with a few clients and got my quarterly taxes ready for filing. In the meantime, I also paid our car insurance (why isn’t this automatically deducted, I don’t know) and our property taxes, which have to be paid in person. I also ran to the pet store, liquor store, home improvement store and grocery store. When I finally pulled back into my driveway, it wasn’t some grand celebration of domesticity. Nope. I lugged that stuff in with as few trips as I could manage, trudging over a dusting of snow that was just high enough to get the bottom of my corduroys wet.
After that? Back to laundry – time to fold the first load and get the second load in the dryer – and then to the minor upstairs repair I’ve been meaning to do for ages. Finally? I vacuumed and at 4:15 p.m., sat down for the first time today without an obligation. All of that for about 2.5 hours of billing today. I’m not winning any awards for high efficiency here. I also have a whole house left to deep clean. The bathrooms need cleaned, Iris needs to be run downstairs to get where I can’t get and it wouldn’t hurt if I kept putting away more of the dregs of the renovations.
Instead? I’m sitting. And lamenting more than just a little bit about how some people get domestic heaven and I get… dirty dishes. (I did a load of dishes today, too.)
Now, if that sounds like I’m whining, well… I probably am. But I think my experience is more likely the truth for most of us. There’s just not time in my life for me to “elevate my everyday.” I can barely keep it together to “elevate my every once in awhile.” Still, I crave the calm and the simply refined. I crave the relaxed lifestyle where there is time to pick the perfect flowers, make the perfect pastry or get caught up in the perfect place setting. Again, I’m not so sure I’d do those things if I did have the time, but I crave the opportunity.
But what I can do? Well, first of all, I can take these 15-20 minutes and just relax without resentment. I can draw some satisfaction from starting the day with an overwhelming list and whittling it down from nose-high to chest-high. Tomorrow, if I’m lucky and diligent, I can get it down to just thigh-high. From there? It’s workable. Not easy, but workable. I can also continue to project manage my life. If I had a super power that would be it. By project managing most things, I get them done through a process I call “relentless incrementalism.” For example, by the end of the week, my goal is to get our lives back together so that it does feel like we get that one rare day of elevated calm.
Lastly, I can celebrate just how good it does feel to have the house decluttered (if not clean), the kitchen clean and the vacuum largely done downstairs (although I still need Iris). It’s nice to have construction materials out of the dining room and most things put back in their place after 17 months of constant construction. I still have three more loads of laundry to do, but everyone has clean jeans and underwear – and that’s a victory in and of itself.
Yep, today was not elevated. Today was a bit of survival mixed with catching up. But this feels real… or authentic as the elevators would say.
The Yuppie Homesteader 