Domestication. To those of us who always imagined career would come before family it used to seem like a dirty word. Why the hell would I ever want to be domestic? Cooking and cleaning and taking care of people who will eventually take you for granted.
Hard knock life. Right? I mean it’s written into every sitcom and film that features a family dynamic. The domestic one is the one who loses her (or yes even his) identity for the chance to iron work shirts and make sack lunches.
Only here’s the thing…
I never thought that sounded good. Even for all the gratitude in Stucco Land would I ever have imagined myself walking Monkey to school and looking forward to PTA meetings. Yup. Totes not my thing. And as the Bio and I made a home together I was excessively bad at anything involving cooking, cleaning and maintaining a home. I was the breadwinner. I kept the home intact and it was his job to keep it tidy and clean and well to drive me up a wall for my lack of domestic goddessness.
But as he shifted from job to job and then went back-to-school, I had to pick up the slack. I had to make good and actually feed myself regular meals. No matter how hard I tried I chose to reside myself to the fact that I would just never be any good at it. Keeping house was just in my DNA. And it sucked to think about since my own Mama was a Rock Star at balancing it all.
When finally I had my own space and had to fill it with tons of stuff I realized what my problem truly was with domestication. It wasn’t that I couldn’t do it. It wasn’t that I was an awful cook or that I could keep a clean house. I was jut well living with an OCD freak. That’s right. Moving into my own casa was like a scene from Sleeping with the Enemy, only without the scary physical abuse. I never put my utensils in their spots. I don’t hang towels edge-to-edge. I leave stuff out on the dining room table. I take my shoes off and leave them by the door. I do not clean the bathrooms every day. I leave the stove just a little bit dirty. And damn it feels good to be a gangster.
While I’m not a slob it feels so good to just live my life away from the scrutiny. To not feel watched. To not feel sad that I forgot to clean the bathroom mirror and how that will ultimately impact my day. Honestly, it didn’t dawn on me until the Boyfriend said I was good at it. And then I started thinking about how much I love cooking, and well while cleaning still sucks I love having my own way of doing things. And well, somedays I look around and think ‘this place is certainly a mess’ I don’t loathe coming home knowing I didn’t empty the dishwasher or fill it for that matter.
I cook like a Rock Star. I grill like Mo’Fo. I keep a wicked cool house it I must say so.
I worry for the Monkey living with his Bio’s insecurities and hang-ups. He still no better than when we shared a home. He lives his life based on some sort of weird code that includes smoking but only eating organic fresh foods. I know, I know. He’s a winner and what was I thinking.
Being domestic isn’t a bad thing. It’s all about finding your groove in doing so. I’m no June Cleaver. I definitely take short cut and forget to wash my kitchen towels or throw them in the dryer for that matter. But this domestic thing ain’t so bad when you get to have fun with it.