I Detest Cleaning

I detest cleaning. I just can’t grasp the concept of enjoying cleaning. Yes I know it eventually needs to be done but my modus operandi is to just let it be. Living through others. I think I’ve applied that this year to many things but interestingly, it’s even extended to cleaning. Since March, there’s been a rapid explosion of ‘Clean with Me’, organisational and productivity videos on YouTube. It’s provided some feel good productivity purpose and motivation in my life while watching them. Only it comes with a sense of shame and inadequacy after viewing them. The feeling of productiveness and being on top of things only lasts however long the videos are and I mellow back to reality after. The dream.

It’ll fall apart anyway

However clean or tidy your place is will eventually unravel. It is amazing to see the amount of mess and unkemptness that happens in the space of a few weeks is a supernatural power in itself. 

As much as I would like to be settled in a converted farmhouse somewhere idyllic, I’m no advocate of the prairie lifestyle of spring cleaning (no matter what month) or the annual lime-washing of walls. I just happen to embrace the dirt, dust and cobwebs that inevitably appear. 

I never had this mentality up until a year ago. While I still didn’t like cleaning, it was something I always did. Being in rentals and share housing previously, it is a sign of respect and human decency to look after things. It’s also in the rental contract…

Even after moving in my current place, I tried as much as possible to keep it ‘new’ looking and tidy all the time. Why? Well, part of me wanted to preserve the newly painted and renovated feel for as long as I could. Every thing had a home and lived in said home. Keeping up appearances was a game as well. Not for the ‘gram but what if someone unexpectedly came and visited? I wanted every surface wiped, dusted, sprayed, vacuumed and mopped. 

Truth be told, it is nice to have a neat and tidy place. Notice I said neat and tidy – not necessarily clean. I was jolted into conducting a panic clean from top to bottom a few days ago as I was due to have company over. The previous time I did a full clean to that extent was (embarrassingly) 4, possibly 5 months ago. 

Time for change

Something clicked one day and all that logic went out of the window. The epiphany was that my home is not a show room. It isn’t designed to be Architectural Digest ready or impress strangers. Nor is it meant to be a sterile place and perfect all day everyday. It is supposed to be lived in, show character and be home-y. I want my photo frames lazily placed on the floor à la Brooklyn style and my books haphazardly strewed from the fireplace mantle to the kitchen counter. That reminds me to take down 2019s Christmas cards. There’s a fine line between messy and lived in chic and the pursuit of the latter is what I’m striving for. Partly out of sheer laziness in getting away with minimal cleaning, but also preserving sanity. 

I can’t be the only one with a minimal (lazy) approach to chores. Let me know if you share the same ethos or otherwise.