""You're early. I need to tidy up, it's a mess," I lamented like some kind of 1950s fridge-magnet lady come to life. It wasn't. Messy, that is. I just hadn't had time to do a pre-company spit polish. And now here was my dear pal, standing in my kitchen, and I was spinning out over coffee rings. As we hugged, I surveyed the dishes in the sink from over his shoulder, the high chair caked with egg-something, the bowl on the butcher's block overflowing with"
"My friend was unfazed: "You live here, don't you?" he said, shrug-smirking in a way that suggested maybe he hadn't flown for almost twenty-four hours to spend time with quartz countertops. For him, it was a throwaway comment. My daughter barrelled in-a tornado of snot and sand and uncapped magic markers-and we got on with our day. But for me, his words landed like a transgressive truth bomb, a much-needed reminder that chasing picture perfect in the domestic sphere is absurd."
A planned visit arrives early, prompting anxiety over an untidy home and fixation on coffee rings, dishes, and a high chair caked with egg. The visitor responds, 'You live here, don't you?' and remains unfazed, while daily chaos resumes with a child barreling in. The remark triggers a realization that treating a lived-in house like a photo shoot is absurd and that meeting ordinary household needs inevitably produces mess. The narrator reflects that life is short and not worth obsessive tidying, questions the compulsion to stress-clean, and notes a personal tendency away from natural tidiness.
Read at The Walrus
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