OCD At Its Finest

Oh my! I am a clean person, I enjoy a clean house and clean dishes and clean laundry and all the etceteras that follow cleanliness. But my husband, he has a mild touch of the OCD. God Bless America for the OCD husbands in it! I am a full time night student and by day a stay at home mom of 4 small children. Lately, being in my senior year, my version of "clean" has transcended into a version of "clutter." It is a bit ridiculous. Things are still clean but they are now very clean PILES! EVERYWHERE! And my wonderful husband, who works 5 days a week, chose this weekend to clean my house in his style. Carpets are shampooed, clutter piles are gone, dusting is gone. Everything sparkles and shines and the best part of this OCD - he ENJOYS it. This sort of cleaning, deep cleaning, relaxes him immensely. This is a rare phenomenon among husbands, I am noticing. More often than not, I will hear women say that they are insulted by their husband's coming home and cleaning behind them when they have already cleaned. Take it as a GIFT! I used to be insulted by it until the dear husband explained to me the odd concept of "clean relaxation." If you have a man willing to make your life easier by cleaning and scrubbing - by all means, allow him this. =) Plus, when he does this, my week is much easier, as all I have to do is maintain. Maintaining is easy.

Too Much "Community"

When does "community" become too much "community"? Hmmmm.... I am just going to take a wild guess, but I think when I take my children to the community swimming pool because we have been prohibited from maintaining a personal pool deeper than 12" in our own backyard and my children and I swim into floating fecal matter, yes, I would be willing to bet that community has crossed over to too much! Needless to say, the reaction from myself was one of instantaneous horror and disgust as well as literally walking water with my children out of the pool and marching disgustedly to the van with them. Follow the dramatics of the situation up with thorough mouth scrubbing and body dousing and you have a well preserved moment that will linger in a mixture of horror and comedy in the mind for years to come.
I understand the need for order and routine in a community of over 23,000 homes, but I think it is not too much to ask that the managers of the community understand that two 24'x16' pools for said number of homes is simply not adequate. (I am shuddering now thinking of what may or may not have entered my mouth while swimming with my children). Is it really so much to ask that families that increment proper safety measure be allowed to have the small pleasure of their own pool in the backyard? LOL. Oh well. This is not something I dwell on on a daily basis but it is something that happened today and the atrocity of the situation (over dramatic?) is still fresh in my mind so it is what I am writing about. I thought it may provide a bit of a laugh for any of you who may read this. Next up.... Something worth a mite more brain power then this short blog required!

The Pull of Society

Breakfast at Tiffany's. No, not the Audrey Hepburn classic which I adore, but which is also drastically contorted from Truman Capote's epic short novel. Yes! The novel! Have you read it? Holiday Golightly easily makes my list of top ten fictional women of all time. Of course, no one could top Scarlett O'Hara. At least, not to my limited knowledge. Yet, Holly. Holly Golightly is a character! No pun intended. Capote created the paradox of society today and this book was written over fifty years ago!!! For every brain washing commercial, for every ego altering clothing ad, for every despicable yet brilliantly placed influence of today's "expectations" Holly laughed in the face of them. And not with a kind laughter but with a laughter that said, "Dear, I feel so sorry for you. For you, who give everything to be on the inside, lose everything inside of you getting there. You should have stayed on the outside." If you have never read this book, I cannot recommend strongly enough that you do so.
Have you ever thought of the rules which society begs of us to acknowledge, like, follow, even teach our children? What are they? That we train our daughters to remain a size 4 and to accept that they are not as pleasing to the aesthetic eye if they go above. To teach our sons that any sign of emotion is horrendous and a weakness or in essence, a great indicator of homosexuality. To ourselves believe that we should hold a steady job and own a house and 2 cars, marry and have 2.5 children, maintain a comfortable level of debt to live the lifestyle that society unfolds before us on the pages of magazines and in the font of reality shows. Is this normal? Or is this society's "normal"? I don't begrudge the steady job, nor even the fancy cars and the extravagant lifestyle - to those who can easily afford such. I do, however, rebel against the notion that these are the things I must own and the direction I should choose in my life and my children's in order to "fit in" and not be found wanting.
If I fit in anywhere, I prefer to fit in in my own skin, my own mind, my own satisfaction and to be honest to myself. As Holly Golightly states, "Honest-to-thyself-honest."
It goes against modern society to love life from conception on - but I do. It goes against modern society to love the marriage of one man and one woman - but I do. It goes against modern society to work through marital problems at all cost - but I do. And for a large majority of society, it goes against modern society to publicly acknowledge a personal relationship with God - and yet I still do. It goes against modern society to stay home and raise children - but I do. It goes against modern society to adhere to my husband's wishes - but I do. It goes against modern society to limit emotional attachments and personal connections - but I do. All these things are things that may seem minor in the pull that society has on us, but they are undercurrents of greater forces at work. It is the undercurrent of the swell of rivers and oceans that can be the most deadly. You don't see them or know they are there until you are in its grasp and then you are stuck floundering and perhaps even drowning.
The larger picture of what society wants from us is plain as day. It is in the school system, the fashion statements, Forbes top ten " " and everywhere we look. It is the more subtle and quiet influences we need to be aware of and beware of. For these are the things that erode morals, scruples, integrity, foundations, families, and even governments. Take note of the things that are dearest and most important to you - get to the root of WHY those things are, if you don't know, then perhaps they are important to you because society has quietly dictated that they be important to you. Find what is important to you because of what you are down to your very core. When society subtly pulls, dig in and pull back. Maintain sincerity and loyalty to your true self and not the self society would have you embrace.

Desire in all its traiterous forms

Have you ever wanted something so badly when you already had everything? Desire is a dangerous addiction to fall under the spell of. But desire is often the thing that most keeps our hearts pulsing life throughout our souls and minds so continuously. What is it you want most in life though you have everything already? Desire can make one feel the ultimate sense of selfishness and yet it is a craving from which one cannot escape. It is inexplicable in its potency and the thought of no longer having that desire can, perhaps, lead to greater disillusionment then having the desire fulfilled. Take me, for instance, I have everything I could possibly want. I have a husband whom adores me, I have children around which my world turns and circumnavigates. And yet, in the core of me, in the deepest caverns and chambers of my heart and mind, there is the innate feeling of despondency. Mind you, I do not often feel this - such is the traitorous deception that can be desire; there one moment nagging and tugging incessantly against my will and gone for many more seconds letting me believe that I am content. What is the opposite of contentment but desire? Is there any other opposite for each other? Two of the greatest opposing forces in this world. Two that can define or redesign entire cultures. And these two are what battle most withing me. I crave and desire to the point of no return and then revel in the warmth of contentment for all its beauty and glory. There are things I desire that can never be spoken aloud - to speak them aloud would be to do the highest injustice of all to the ones who have given so much and vested so much into my being. To not scream them aloud from the highest peaks and the lowest crevices is to do an injustice as well; an injustice to my mind and emotion. Then again, what are emotions but incomprehensible scraps of society directed and influenced fodder that we have have accumulated along the way throughout our life? Are they such that we should invest unlimited time and resources into staggering after them to keep them in what we assume is a measure of balance? Emotions, like desire, are traitorous as well and must be controlled. There is a limit to self control but there must also be a limit to one's lack of control. Desire, when handles with care, can be a radiant source of daily endorphins, or it can be the decline and ultimate crash of everything we have ever known.