Cleaning House
Literally and figuratively.
Friend of mine is coming into Oakland for the weekend, and he's staying with me, so I spent a good deal of my evening last night cleaning my apartment. I've said before that one of the benefits of having friends is that it makes you keep things up in a way that maybe you wouldn't under normal circumstances. C coming to visit means the bathroom gets cleaned better than it has in a long, long time.
Yesterday, though, thinking about all I had to do cleaning-wise last night got me pretty stressed out. More stressed out than I had a right to be. Mixed up in all that were several things: One, guilt that I'm the sort of person who needs to clean his place just when others are going to stay--what is it that makes me not appreciate, need or want a very clean house when it's just me? Two, 'unrelated' stuff around planning the weekend with C in town, given a birthday that needs to be celebrated and a group of friends that is still split, at times like birthdays, in two because S and I aren't friends any longer. Three, subsequent guilt about said split, which is really weird because there's not much I can do about it but weather the storm.
One is really the only thing I can do anything about, at the moment. But it's a complex thing with me (geez, what isn't?). I've talked to my therapist about it, and she has suggested I think about the possibility that I create a living space that is uninviting to others because, well, I want to make it unlikley that others will come by. I mean, c'mon, I have one chair. Sure, I live in a studio, but one chair? That's just...neurotic as fuck.
And that has gotten me to thiking about how close I do and don't let people get to me. It's a simple thing, but I think it has some merit. I think it's also bundled up with feelings of a lack of self-worth that I have at times, when I'm feeling some depression. As I've mentioned before, it also likely has something to do with some sexism--I may have never properly learned to keep my environment clean because, subconsciously, I think of cleaning as something that men don't do.
And, in the spirit of rambling, this also makes me think about the nature of having to start from someplace. That is, if I'm depressed, my environment gets worse--I make a messy house--and the messy house makes me more depressed; but I have to start from somewhere. That is, I start with a house. There's no getting around that. Well, there is, but that would be even more depressing. Now I'm reaching even more: Just like the existentialist fact that I have to choose, I have to live in some environment, and sometimes, I think, creating that environement, whether it mean cleaning or choosing a bed or whatever, sometimes feels like a burden that's hard to bear.
That is pitiful, I know. That I have a nice place to live shouldn't be a burden, at all. And yet: For me, it feels like it. So I have to figure out why. Why is it that something that should be welcome, something that should be freeing, even (I have the comfort of having a place to live), feels like a cross to bear at times? And why does it seem to be a continual problem, like getting up on the wrong side of the bed three times when the other side of the bed is a cliff:
What's up with that?
Filed under:Comics as Life Therapy
Literally and figuratively.
Friend of mine is coming into Oakland for the weekend, and he's staying with me, so I spent a good deal of my evening last night cleaning my apartment. I've said before that one of the benefits of having friends is that it makes you keep things up in a way that maybe you wouldn't under normal circumstances. C coming to visit means the bathroom gets cleaned better than it has in a long, long time.
Yesterday, though, thinking about all I had to do cleaning-wise last night got me pretty stressed out. More stressed out than I had a right to be. Mixed up in all that were several things: One, guilt that I'm the sort of person who needs to clean his place just when others are going to stay--what is it that makes me not appreciate, need or want a very clean house when it's just me? Two, 'unrelated' stuff around planning the weekend with C in town, given a birthday that needs to be celebrated and a group of friends that is still split, at times like birthdays, in two because S and I aren't friends any longer. Three, subsequent guilt about said split, which is really weird because there's not much I can do about it but weather the storm.
One is really the only thing I can do anything about, at the moment. But it's a complex thing with me (geez, what isn't?). I've talked to my therapist about it, and she has suggested I think about the possibility that I create a living space that is uninviting to others because, well, I want to make it unlikley that others will come by. I mean, c'mon, I have one chair. Sure, I live in a studio, but one chair? That's just...neurotic as fuck.
And that has gotten me to thiking about how close I do and don't let people get to me. It's a simple thing, but I think it has some merit. I think it's also bundled up with feelings of a lack of self-worth that I have at times, when I'm feeling some depression. As I've mentioned before, it also likely has something to do with some sexism--I may have never properly learned to keep my environment clean because, subconsciously, I think of cleaning as something that men don't do.
And, in the spirit of rambling, this also makes me think about the nature of having to start from someplace. That is, if I'm depressed, my environment gets worse--I make a messy house--and the messy house makes me more depressed; but I have to start from somewhere. That is, I start with a house. There's no getting around that. Well, there is, but that would be even more depressing. Now I'm reaching even more: Just like the existentialist fact that I have to choose, I have to live in some environment, and sometimes, I think, creating that environement, whether it mean cleaning or choosing a bed or whatever, sometimes feels like a burden that's hard to bear.
That is pitiful, I know. That I have a nice place to live shouldn't be a burden, at all. And yet: For me, it feels like it. So I have to figure out why. Why is it that something that should be welcome, something that should be freeing, even (I have the comfort of having a place to live), feels like a cross to bear at times? And why does it seem to be a continual problem, like getting up on the wrong side of the bed three times when the other side of the bed is a cliff:
What's up with that?
Filed under:Comics as Life Therapy
posted by Jeff Pollet at 7:20 AM
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