Organised Chaos

My house is falling down around my ears.  Everywhere I look there are clothes, nonchalantly lazing on the bannister of the stairs, draped not very seductively over the back of the couch, multiplying on bedroom floors.
There’s lists, to do lists, shopping lists, activity lists, birthday lists.  A white board on the kitchen wall charts our daily existence – soccer, chess, speech & drama, hurling, camogie, football, ballet, rugby, teach classes, coach, study, dog grooming, kitten spaying, baby vaccinations.  It’s surrounded by birthday party invitations, Christmas present vouchers, raffle tickets and various other slips of paper that sneak in via a school bag or letter box.

The plants need to be watered. The fish tank needs to be cleaned. There’s a whole heap of vegetable seeds waiting for spring to come so that we can plant them – maybe next spring!

Once upon a time I was early for everything. In fact, being late induced a feeling of panic.  Nowadays I’m usually forced to forego either a shower or food, sometimes both.  Despite my best efforts to leave out clothes the night before, to make lunches and pack school bags, we are late.

Despite going through the morning mantra of “wash your face, brush your teeth, open your curtains, make your bed, put your shoes on, get your coat on, bring down your laundry” a million times over the last couple of years, I still find myself standing at the bottom of the stairs every morning, on repeat.

It’s not ideal really, this so much to do, so little time house that we live in but it’s our reality.  And somehow it works, or sort of works and that’s good enough.  It’s taught me a lot, this messy yellow house, where two of my children were born.  I’ve learned how to close presses at lightning speed in order to prevent things from falling out on top of me.  I’m now an expert at hiding piles of laundry when people are coming to visit.  I can magic a dinner out of half a rice cake and a stale pitta bread.  Mainly though, it’s taught me to relax.  Not in a zen monastery kind of way but in a don’t sweat the small stuff way.  Is it important that the floors don’t get washed every day / week? Of course not, dirt helps build healthy immune systems! Does it matter that we wear every last item of clothing before I get around to putting a wash on? Nope, the garage down the road has installed new industrial washing machines so you bet your life It doesn’t matter.  And really, who can call themselves a parent until they’ve had the privilege of standing on Lego at 3am?

John Lennon once said “Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans”.  So while I plan to organise my time better, to sort through 7 years-worth of baby clothes, to clean out the garage, to do the recycling more often, it turns out I’m far too busy living!