This will come as no surprise to anyone who knows me in real life: I am not a good housekeeper. I wasn’t a good housekeeper when I was a single parent in graduate school, or when I was working full time, with or without kids, or even (if I go back a long, long time) when I had few responsibilities except to myself. Unfortunately, this inaptitude—surely there must be a word to describe a serious lack of skill and interest in a particular activity?—has become magnified since my cancer diagnosis.
Early on, of course, the household disarray was all understandable. Every single resource, every iota of energy, needed to go toward keeping me alive through treatments and then into early recovery. (Or at least that was my rationale!) I can’t say that I ever got much outside support in this regard, despite the commonly-voiced question, “what can I do to help?” We got lots of casseroles, but no offers for doing chores, no matter how much I hinted or begged. The notable exception to this is my sister, who did in fact contribute her formidable housekeeping talents to helping us to be organized enough to make it through the worst stretch. (That’s my other excuse: that my sister got all the good housewife skills in the family. Oddly enough, that gene skipped from her to my older daughter; guess that’s how things go sometimes.) And several of my friends pitched in for a wonderful once-over in my garden the fall before last.
But even though I am supposed to be better now, it is not appreciably less difficult for me to keep up with ordinary household chores. Somehow we wind up with clean clothes, usually folded and put away by their respective owners; we generally have reasonable food to eat, and sometimes I’m the one who has prepared it; the bills get paid, mostly on time; our bed gets made more often than not. Other than that, it’s anybody’s guess when the non-urgent incoming mail will be sorted and handled properly, when a new, clean shower curtain liner will be put up, or when the perennial beds will be weeded again.
We have a more conventionally gendered division of labor at our house now than we used to, as well. I’m not working for pay at the moment, and in contrast my husband during the school year typically has a 60-hour work week plus another 10 hours of commuting. I don’t expect him to take on much, since he already has these heavy time commitments. My younger daughter could do more than she does, and with luck we’ll see some positive changes there this spring. But for the most part, addressing the daily household chores is up to me.
So that’s the context in which I ask you to think about questions like these: What household chores have become lower priority for you post-diagnosis? Which ones CAN’T you do because of safety/health considerations? What do you do, if anything, about getting them done by others instead?
Then please join me below the large orange sponge for my next explanation and prompt.
Notwithstanding all I said above, I have a seemingly anomalous admission: I enjoy spring cleaning. Doing the special projects, the reorganizing, or the deep cleaning to leave a room looking better from top to bottom has always held so much more satisfaction than the ordinary, daily chores like dishwashing or sweeping floors. This is the first spring in three years that I’ve been able even to contemplate tackling a project like making new curtains or cleaning the carpeting, and I am looking forward to accomplishing something dramatic, notwithstanding my misgivings about my stamina.
This year, it’s not only the change of seasons and the lengthening days that are motivating me. I also feel compelled to declutter as well as possible because my family and I are currently disposing of my late uncle’s possessions. That is a difficult task in the best of circumstances, and I suppose in many ways these are close to the best of circumstances: no one is squabbling over household items or memorabilia; his house was in good repair; we have no pressing need to hurry. Cleaning out my maternal grandfather’s house twenty-five years ago was a far more disagreeable project, since he was a serious hoarder on top of being massively disinclined to clean. (Two representative anecdotes: He had six automobile batteries in his kitchen, with no indication whether any of them were good. And he had two refrigerators, because he couldn’t be bothered with cleaning out the old, spoiled stuff from the first one. Oh, and the second one was almost all full of beer.) Still, I have already spent several hours in my uncle’s house trying to identify and sort photographs, documents, letters and other mementos, with many more hours to go. Each time I finish a shift I promise myself that I must go home and attempt to impose some good order on my own rather unwieldy stores of photographs, documents, letters and the like.
I am not the first to rail about this in vain, and I know I won’t be the last: but is there anything more frustrating than to come across purported family photographs and have NO IDEA who is in the picture, let alone when and where it was taken? Maybe it’s the archivist in me that objects so strenuously to these lost moments—but then again, my aunt (who predeceased my uncle by four years) was herself a professional archivist. I guess the old saying about the shoemaker’s children is vindicated once again.
I did make some progress in this regard in preparing for my birthday bash last month. I assembled something between a photo diary and an autobiographical slide show, combining old photos of me with relatives and friends, usually at special events, with captions that taken together create some sort of narrative arc of my life to this point. To be honest, I was (and am) thinking about it as at least an entrée to a full-fledged memoir, which later may be of some benefit and interest to my family if to no one else. Of course, while I’m creating and modifying it, this assemblage has some benefit and interest for me as well, even if only to give me the illusion of being able to shape my own life story.
There are many ways to designate when the new year begins, and I have some appreciation for the rationale for all of them (at least those with which I’m familiar). This year, however, I’m leaning heavily on Spring. I want it to signal the start for me of keeping what I need—whether possessions or habits of living—and discarding the rest. Of trusting that I really can make those decisions quickly and cleanly, without regrets. Of believing as well that what I need the most has little if anything to do with the stuff I have, and much more to do with the experiences I can create and share. Wish me luck!
Monday Night Cancer Club is a Daily Kos group focused on dealing with cancer, primarily for cancer survivors and caregivers, though clinicians, researchers, and others with a special interest are also welcome. Volunteer diarists post Monday evenings between 7-8 PM ET on topics related to living with cancer, which is very broadly defined to include physical, spiritual, emotional and cognitive aspects. Mindful of the controversies endemic to cancer prevention and treatment, we ask that both diarists and commenters keep an open mind regarding strategies for surviving cancer, whether based in traditional, Eastern, Western, allopathic or other medical practices. This is a club no one wants to join, in truth, and compassion will help us make it through the challenge together.