We live here.

I struggle with perfectionism.  One area where I have battled many years is with my home.  If there was a spot on the counter, the entire thing had to wiped down.  Cords and wires needed to be hidden or coiled and neatly put away.  Paperwork must be filed immediately and even the "junk" drawer was constantly cleaned out.  I would spend hours wiping, washing, vacuuming, dusting, organizing, and putting away items just to restart the entire process the next day.  However, living in a home with two young boys, two dogs and a husband made my "laundry" list even longer and more impossible to keep up with.  One day I was wiping the kitchen counters and almost in a tizzy because my parents stopped over, unannounced, and things were not in order.  I apologized saying, "I haven't had much time to clean. I'm sorry the house is such a mess."  What was my Dad's response?  "Its ok, Tara. You live here."  It caught me off guard a bit but then I thought it really made sense.  Our house isn't just a show piece that you see in on Pinterest or HGTV. Those homes are staged specifically for that.  My family, my boys, were living here.  My family was playing and growing and learning and eating and reading and sleeping and gathering here.  We were making friendships and memories.  Our house was full of Life.  

Since that day, my outlook on how my house needs to look is quite different.  I dont vacuum and dust and clean bathrooms and catch up on laundry and scrub the kitchen every single day.  I do one, maybe two each day.  Some days I do none.  When I vacuum, I dont always move the kitchen chairs to get under the table, or shake out the rugs, or even move the pile of shoes by the back door.  When I clean the kitchen after a meal, there may be crumbs left on the table cloth and sometimes dirty dishes pile in the sink.  I have fingerprints on my doors, actually man-sized hand prints when Mark is working in the garage, dog hair on my couches, and clean laundry stacked to be put away.  What I dont have is the driving need for everything to be in order and its proper place before I can function.  I dont have an overwhelming voice stating, "You cannot sit down until all the housework is finished." And I certainly dont have to put off time with my boys because dishes are in the sink.  

When the "voice of shame" starts whispering in my ear that the check list must get done RIGHT NOW, I remind myself that life carries on here and one day I am going to miss seeing that backpack on the kitchen floor and searching the house for Austin's tennis shoes because he never puts them in the shoe bucket.  Dont get my wrong, my house is still clean and in good order.  Its important to me and I am still a very organized person.  But my pride and confidence in myself as a wife and mother are no longer tied to every piece of dog fur off the floor or if every closet is neatly organized.