Learning how to read your parents is part of growing up. It's always important to learn when it's a good time to hang around and when you should beat a hasty retreat to your room. For my siblings and me, our mom couldn't have made it clearer. When the house was a mess, she was unhappy. When she was in the midst of cleaning, she was very unhappy. But when the house was clean, we'd be able to get away with things like forgetting to feed the dog.
The unfortunate part of our childhood was that it seemed like our mom was always cleaning. If you came home from swim practice and heard the roar of the vacuum, it was best to postpone dinner until the coast was clear. All too often, however, the coast would never clear, and we'd all be summoned from our rooms and handed a can of furniture polish.
It's interesting that, even though it takes us no time at all to read our parents, it takes us such a long time to understand them. I always resented my mom's cleaning habits, swearing that I'd never feel the need to run a duster over a brick fireplace. Living on my own has not caused me to realize that I am exactly like my mother, but it has helped me understand my mother.
I remember when my parents were going through their divorce, my grandma came to take care of us while our mom battled bouts of depression. One day, I woke up to the sound of the vacuum and came downstairs to see my mom running the machine over the living room floor. She was thirty pounds lighter by then and didn't say a word to me, but my grandma smiled and whispered, "She's cleaning. She's better." And though I always thought I understood what my grandma meant, now I can truly understand. It's taken a lot of stress and an apartment of my own to fully grasp why my mom took out the vacuum that morning.
There are days when I come home from class and want nothing more than to go to sleep for hours on end. Admittedly, sometimes this does happen, but more often than not I find myself scrubbing out the refrigerator, washing dishes, mopping the floor and performing other tasks which in no way decrease the number of pages I still have to read. And yet, after a thorough reorganization of the pantry, I feel a greater sense of accomplishment than any completed reading assignment could ever deliver. There's something so rewarding about being able to really witness the fruits of your labor - a smooth countertop and de-greased burner plates are like a crowd of people cheering you on after a big race. "You did this!" they scream. "We glisten because of you!"
Cleaning and other housekeeping tasks are a means of coping, usually with myself. They give me something to be proud of when I'm feeling hopelessly unproductive in my academic and personal lives.
Schoolwork puts your mental endurance to the test, and when you're finished all you have to show for it is a line through the task on your To Do list. But cleaning calls for physical effort, and it stimulates your brain along the way and rewards you with a tangible finished product. Most importantly, it gives you something to do with yourself. I can't count the number of times I've avoided schoolwork by looking at cats online and thinking, "What am I doing with my life?" But when I'm elbow deep in sudsy dishwater, I always have an answer to that question - "I'm making something look better, and I'm making myself feel better." There's never been a time when I have looked at my dustless bookshelves and thought, I really regret cleaning those. And it's because those clean shelves are a testament to my productivity - productivity I could have wasted had I fallen asleep or logged onto Reddit. So ditch your laptop for a few hours and go all Mr. Clean on your scuffed and crumb-laden kitchen floor. You might find that you and your mother are not so different after all.
Chelsea's column runs biweekly Wednesdays. She can be reached at c.spata@cavalierdaily.com.
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