I cleaned the house about seven days ago. Sometimes it is a quick clean and sometimes it’s a deep clean, depending on what my day looks like. Either way, I know I cleaned all the glass and mirrors this last time, so as I walked up to the front door, all I could see were fingerprint smudges across the glass. Not.again!
“Who has had their hands all over my door? I just can’t keep this house clean”, I said out loud to myself.
Just then my youngest son appeared at the glass from the outside. His little face pressed up against the bottom pane and his nose smooshed flat against the glass. His tiny hands continued to leave smudges all over the {used-to-be-clean} glass and his eyes opened wide and looked as blue as ever from my view. He saw me, blew a mouth bubble on the glass and scooted away.
I started to bark at him to “get your hands off that glass” and then I caught myself mid sentence.
{Note to self}: someday the house will be quiet, the glass will likely stay clean and you’ll beg for the times when little fingers left prints across the glass.
In the past and in the current, I find myself defining my value by how clean I keep the house. What will people think of me if they see these finger smudges and dirty marks? Will they think I don’t tend to my duties or define me by how well I keep the house?
Probably not. That’s just me doing that to me. A dirty or clean house is not a sign of my character, but my perfectionism takes me there mentally sometimes.
So as he scooted off, I regrouped my thoughts and started to see the smudges a bit differently. Rather than a bother and a definition of how well I keep the house, I smiled and decided I’m going to look at it much differently.
This is public artwork: abstract, free flowing and random, very random!
These are marks of time, time I can’t get back. I need to go easy on me and love what my little artists leave behind because someday, someday way too soon, the glass will stay clean and all I will want is for someone to show up and simply just leave their mark!
