Perfect Mess

Let me tell you about my kitchen…

Through out this time of the pandemic, the kitchen has become my archenemy, my nemesis, my unending foe.

There are four humans in my family. There are three meals a day. That apparently equals seventy five hundred million thousand dishes. (okay that might be a slight exaggeration as well as not a real number, but for really, there seems to always be dishes to do).

I took the picture for this post on Saturday. I had spent the morning, with my whole crew in tow, helping my mother clean her house. I then came home in the afternoon and tackled our house. It was a massive day of cleaning all around.

I made great progress in my house. The floors were swept. The carpet was vacuumed. I even tackled my children’s bathroom. I was killing it! I found the kitchen table under the stack of mysterious stuff that I still don’t know where it came from and managed to dust most places, I sorted recycling and broke down boxes like a mad woman.

But this kitchen.

I just couldn’t.

Everyday I tackle that place and it just comes back with vengeance.

I. JUST. COULD. NOT!

I knew it was a mental thing. I physically could, but in that moment, emotionally that was not a hill I wanted to climb.

This got me thinking. No matter how hard we try to clean up things, there is always some area that is left a mess. I looked around the rest of my clean home and thought, close enough.

We don’t ever have it all together and, if we do manage to get it all together, it doesn’t last long. Whether it is our home or our inner self, we all have that corner, that one part of us, that isn’t completely put together—and maybe that is okay—maybe that is even a little bit beautiful.

We often try to hide it way, tuck our imperfections into the proverbial closet, not wanting anyone to know that we are not totally put together, not totally perfect. When maybe the truth is that no one is perfect, completely together in this world. We are all just doing our damn best.

We all have those spaces, EVER SINGLE ONE OF US.

God knows those spots. God sees our imperfections and our short comings and God loves us anyway.

So let’s give ourselves some slack and love ourselves too and each other, even in the midst of our messiness.