It’s time to forget about dust. Time to forget about obsessing over it and judging people for not obsessing over it.
Since this is a blog about being honest, I’m going to tell you about a time I judged someone about dust and what I learned from being an a-hole.
A nice young couple we knew had invited me and Jimmy to their baby shower. They were having their first child. He worked at night and she was still working at her job, nearly eight months pregnant and very uncomfortable.
We walked in, were introduced to some of the other people there, put our gift on a table and sat down on the sofa in the family room.
Having never been to their house, I was looking around the room, and there it was.
Oh my God…look at the dust.
It was everywhere. On the coffee table, the TV stand and the console table across from us.
When was the last time she dusted?
Once the shower was over, we said our goodbyes and got back in the Jeep to go home, I asked Jimmy, “Wow. Did you see all that dust?”
“No,” he replied. He never saw it and wouldn’t have cared if he had.
I looked out the window and said to myself:
Cheryl, you are such a bitch.
I’ve always been the woman who drains all the joy out of a gathering in my home by frantically trying to clean weeks of grime off of table tops, shelves, lamp bases, book cases, light fixtures and baseboards before company shows up. (Can you relate? Many women my age do this.) That’s when my bitchiness really comes out.
Jimmy will see me attacking the baseboards with a Magic Eraser and say, “Sweetie, you don’t have to do this.”
Me: Yes I DO. I’m NOT having people in here with this place looking like THIS.
It’s exhausting trying to give people the illusion that you are a domestic goddess when you’re simply not. Why is being a domestic goddess even remotely important in the year 2023–or for the last three decades, for that matter?
I’ve always blamed my mother for my neurosis because she kept this house spotless, even in the days of a coal-fired furnace and three squabbling kids.
But blaming Mom is a cop out. It’s not her fault that I’ve spent years trying to be something I’m not.
Now, in a kind of cosmic payback for the baby shower judgment, I live in my parents’ 63-year-old home with forced hot air heat, a gravel driveway and gravel leading up to the porch. It’s constantly dusty.
I remember the first family gathering I had here two summers ago. Mom was still with us, but she was not walking anymore and needed a lot of help. I cleaned this place until my back hurt and my nerves were rubbed raw. I would have had so much more fun if I’d just had the fam over and rolled with it. That experience stuck with me.
I care less and less about the dust in this place as the months go by.
In fact part of the reason I’m writing this post is to bid a long overdue farewell to my bitchy, edgy, wannabe domestic goddess.
Here’s proof. That photo at the top of this post? I'll repeat it here to make it easier.
That’s what the top of the microwave looked like two days ago. I drew that face in it.
This is a closeup of one of the blades in our bedroom ceiling fan this morning.
Those circles in the photo above? They showed up when I moved two candles on a credenza.
Here's the dust on the magnifying mirror I use every day to put on mascara. Funny how it doesn't magnify the dust...and I don't seem to care.
I could go on, but you get the idea.
Yep. That’s our dust. I put it on the internet, showed you and lived through it.
My heart sinks when I hear people I love say things like, “Don’t look at the house when you come over. It’s a mess.”
It doesn’t matter, love. Not even a little.
Dust can be wiped away…or not. What can’t be wiped away is laughter, caring, respect, humility, deep friendship, empathy, connection, trust and love. The things that happen—and that truly matter—inside our dusty homes.
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