It’s funny how the smallest thing as a paper towel, a piece of paper 10 X 11 can cause someone to completely lose their shit. Well that’s what it does to Jen. Let me explain.
I grew up in the house that I currently live in, albeit a remodeled version. We moved here when I was 9, just before starting fourth grade. The house we moved from was a piece of work, my father’s work. He was a great starter of projects, not so much a great finisher. He built the house that we moved from with his own hands. The property was owned by my grandmother and my mother was actually born in the old old house as it was affectionately called. My father built the house behind it while my family still lived in the old old house and then proceeded to knock it down once it was inhabitable. From my understanding the old old house probably just needed a good push to knock it over.
Anyways…the old house had one bathroom, but my father actually built a spot for two. That spot ended being nothing but a hole in the wall with stuff stuck in it. It had no gutters, no front steps other than cinder blocks. When a neighbor was getting ready to build a new house my father decided he was going to level our property. The back hoe came and deposited tons of dirt mounds to our front yard where they remained until the day they knocked that house down to build a massive addition to the elementary school next door. The yard was an eyesore but a great yard to grow up with. I have very fond memories of riding my bike up and down those mounds of dirt during the summer and sledding down them in the winter. The back yard had a pool and swing set with a great pine tree that I loved to climb up and down. We were poor. My parents did what they could with what they had. They seconded mortgaged the house to put my brother through college. They both worked and lived paycheck to paycheck. We didn’t have fancy vacations; instead we had a trailer that they put in a campground up in the Poconos. Some of my fondest memories are from there, meeting new people every weekend, camp fires and endless exploring. I promised myself when I was little I was not going to be poor, that I wanted a nice house, with gutters and real front steps and a nice yard. So far, that’s what I’ve accomplished among other things.
My house is relatively large. Twelve rooms total if you count the bathrooms and laundry room. Five bedrooms, formal living and dining room, family room and a huge kitchen. Everything was recently repainted and carpeted due to a fall thru my ceiling. I figured it was time to redo, the last bits of my ex husband would be gone and a fresh start.
Which leads me to the paper towel trail. I try to keep my house together but being a full time working single mother doesn’t give me a lot of time to keep a hundred percent on top of things. Mind you, I love to clean. I find it cathartic to clean, gives me a sense of accomplishment especially when I am extremely stressed. It can take me anywhere from three to six days to clean the house thoroughly top to bottom. I have not one memory of my mother ever cleaning and as she ages her messes around the house have become an even bigger thorn in my side. That’s where the paper towel trail begins. No matter what room my mother is in or chair she is sitting on, there are paper towels tucked under the cushion or sticking out from the side. The wing back chair in the living room, the end cushion on the couch in the family room, the recliner in her room. They are everywhere.
I think that’s where my problem begins. When I am at Jen's I use a lot of paper towels. Due to her cat I am continuously washing my hands due to being allergic to her. My nose will run…another paper towel. Wipe off the counter in the kitchen, leave paper towel on said counter. They end up being everywhere and by the time I leave it looks like the Bounty Paper Towel factory has exploded all over Jen's apartment. She will come sweeping in to the room, grabbing all of them and shaking them at me.
These little pieces of paper seem to cause her a tremendous amount of stress because god forbid anything is lying around. I often joke with her that she grew up in a museum, her parent’s house has that feel, nothing out of place ever and it feels like there should be red velvet rope keeping people out of the room.
She’s always…”we’re neat people”. Her mother stayed home until Jen was five. When her children were in school she was able to keep the house together. My house is lived in. I do my best to keep it together. During the summer its clean, the yard done meticulously and the cars washed. I never want to feel poor again and work really hard to make a nice home for my kids. Jen will walk in and see the paper towels all over the rooms and shoot me that look, takes a deep breath and I start smiling. To her, she sees a mess…. To me, I see home.
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