Nov
1
Our usual Halloween routine involves walking around our quiet neighborhood and running into a few groups of kids here and there before returning home to hand out/devour candy while watching a creepy movie of my choosing. As the resident fan of all things frightening and disturbing, I get to pick, and no, I do not limit myself to age-appropriate options, which is one of the many reasons my children will eventually need therapy.
(I know, I know: the therapy joke is both tired and lame, but honestly, I’m here to say that therapy is actually really awesome and nearly everyone would benefit from it at multiple points in their lives, so I hope my kids DO get therapy when they’re older, and if a teeny tiny bit of Poltergeist-related PTSD encourages that to happen, then I have done them a favor.)
This year, however, we chose to visit John’s brother’s family so Dylan could trick-or-treat with his cousin. We knew their neighborhood goes all out for Christmas — they live in a relatively upscale-modest street but the adjoining streets are filled with actual mansions, and the Christmas displays are so opulent people hire limousines to go cruising by the lights during weekends in December — but we hadn’t quite realized how seriously some homeowners take Halloween, too.
I have never experienced a Halloween like that. It started out pretty tame, with some cool displays here and there and a decent number of kids and families, but soon we were trekking by what felt like Hollywood sets complete with professional lighting and roiling plumes of dry-ice fog, and the sidewalks were as packed as Disneyland.
It was delightful, and a little overwhelming, particularly as it got dark and the costumed crowds took on a disorienting offkey-carnival-music vibe as people loomed in and out of our increasingly tiny field of view. Riley was a little meh about the whole trick or treating thing and Dylan had a hard time pulling out of a funk related to getting busted for sneaking off with his cousin earlier in the evening (“But Charlie said it was okay!” “CHARLIE IS SEVEN!”) but all in all, everyone had fun.
We cut out early to come home, do a quick loop to visit a few neighbors, and settle in front of the TV with our laps full of chocolate. It was the perfect mix of tried-and-true, plus something new.
I have to say, our little family foursome has collectively and individually been stepping outside of our comfort zones lately — trying things we haven’t tried before, meeting new people, daring to do things that seem scary or just plain socially intimidating — and it isn’t always easy, but it’s almost always kind of great.
Oct
30
One of my favorite and most rewarding tasks is also one of my LEAST favorite, most resented tasks. I can’t quite understand how this can be: why do I like it when I hate it so very very much?
I’m talking about cleaning up the kitchen. Not a deep clean, but the act of restoring it to its default setting, which is decluttered and mostly wiped clean (but probably roiling with bacteria and hidden grime). At minimum, I do this job at some point in the morning after the kids head off to school, again after the kids come home and have snacks, and again after dinner, but because John and I both work from home, on a typical day some variation of this process gets repeated over and over and over.
It’s always so gratifying to be done with it, when I can look around and see clean surfaces and organized objects and everything smells at least halfway decent. That part reliably lights up the reward center in my brain, and sometimes the act of cleaning does too: I frequently turn on podcasts when I’m tidying and can feel a sort of pleasant relaxation from the familiar rhythms of it all, and take enjoyment from the incremental observable improvements as I go.
Other times, though, I get that dreary hamster wheel feeling, particularly when I’m faced with the more irritating messes: the cereal sludge that somehow never stays confined to the bowls, the black smudges from pencil graphite and newspaper ink, the downright astounding amount of crumbs that one goddamned english muffin produces.
Why can’t anyone get their dishes in the dishwasher, I think for the millionth time. Why is there always egg cooked onto the outside of the pan? What sadist invented Cocoa Pebbles’ ability to transform into brown cement if it isn’t rinsed before drying? Who here is getting a fresh glass every single time they want a molecule of water because it really fucking seems like everyone besides me is doing this?
Then again, when it’s clean, I am so pleased, and my mind is more clear, and I feel that weird sense of peace that comes from both environment and achievement. (And I’m talking about clean to my standard, you know: I do continually nag people into picking up after themselves, but ultimately that default setting is a requirement I set for myself, if that makes sense.)
The trick, it seems, for not getting overwhelmed by the grind of the job is to imagine the positive feelings of the result, but man, that is SO hard to do. Making my bed, exercising, eating healthy food, choosing sobriety, buying groceries, making a necessary phone call, talking to someone I don’t know … why do these things sometimes feel nearly insurmountable with unpleasantness and the despair of unending repetition, when the view from the other side is invariably filled with relief, lightness, and the renewed sense that I did the thing, I am strong and capable and I can do the goddamned thing?
I will never understand this trickery of the brain and I realize it’s not unique to me. This is surely why we have a $64 billion dollar diet industry along with a plethora of heavily fragranced cleaning product choices.
Maybe one day I’ll figure out how to see my end goals so clearly the scales will tip and I won’t be mired in the forever loop of ugh, AGAIN, but in the meantime, I guess I’ll just be here, wiping the countertops of my life. Over and over, because there are always crumbs, but I’m always willing to keep working for those shining surfaces.
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