The guests are arriving at any moment. Fear is seeping from your pores as you turn into a panicked human tornado, tearing through the living room, the dining room, the guest bathroom.
The toilet bowl isn’t clean! The sink has dirty dishes in it! So many odds and ends out of place! Everything gets swept into the nearest room with a lockable door…
“No one must ever go there”, you think to yourself.
We’ve all been here. (If you haven’t, keep your housekeeping black magic to yourself.) The fluster, the embarrassment, the self-conscious worry at what “they” will think of our imperfect life, which is currently splayed all across our imperfect home.
It’s exhausting. It’s unsettling. But hey, that’s hosting, right? If you can’t make your living room look like something out of a 1950’s homemaking catalogue for your honored guests, you might as well not even invite them over. No one wants to see your real life, seriously. Ugh… just don’t even. Please.
Well, you know what? I have neither time, nor a rat’s derrière to give to that nonsense.
I’m fed up, and I QUIT.
I hate cleaning. I hate it to H-E-double hockey sticks. Same goes for dishes and laundry. Also dusting. Also, sweeping, mopping, tidying, organizing, wiping, vacuuming, etc., etc.
Try to imagine, for a moment, what my house must look like. Got that image in your head?
Now, imagine it a little worse than that.
Add in a sprinkling of tiny, creative, energetic humans roaring around like rabid monkeys.
What you are left with is a space that most people wouldn’t invite even their spouses into. (Thankfully, my husband is the best man alive, and we’re learning this housekeeping thing together. Sorry girls, he’s taken.) And yet… is this really a picture that NONE of you can relate to?? Surely it feels like a familiar story to someone…
Regardless, here’s the deal. My home… yes, it’s a HOME, not a sanitized restaurant or a spotless bed and breakfast, is open ALWAYS. To anyone that comes to love and be loved.
Our home is always open, because our HEARTS are open.
And they’re messy too, sometimes. Our hearts can be a little unkempt, a little wild, a little weird and a lot disorganized, but I’m going to stop apologizing for that, too.
And you know what? If a clean house is your thing, that’s fantastic! I literally ADORE clean spaces. (Judge the inconsistency all you like.)
And if messy lives and messy hearts isn’t really your thing, that’s OK, too! We’d probably better just meet at coffee shops and mostly only talk about things we’re good at.
I’m me. Plain and simple – also I’m confusing and complicated, sometimes. Full of life, and tired sometimes. Full of joy, and sad sometimes. Full of light – and sometimes a bit dark.
So are you.
And I want you to come into my mess knowing that you and your mess are welcome.
So, let’s do life and be kind and learn a lot from each other.
No more “hosting” guests in my home, and no more “hosting” friendships in the formal sitting room of my heart.
Come in. Pull up a chair that doesn’t have junk on it, and feel free to clear your own spot at the table. Just push 4 months’ worth of files that should go in the cabinet downstairs, that ancient banana peel, and the LEGO man’s amputated limb aside, and help yourself to leftovers in my fridge. But please, for your own safety, do a quick sniff-check first, and NEVER pull from the back of the shelf… you don’t know how long that’s been there… neither do I. And now, let’s talk about life – the good, the bad, the ugly, the wonder of it all…
You’re always welcome in my home and in my heart.
Letters to the Bride 