Five Steps to Home Happiness

People I have known have had different types of priorities and these priorities directly affect their level of home happiness. Some people need an immaculate home to feel content and happy at home. Some people believe that they need that immaculate home, when in reality keeping up on household duties is only a source of stress for them. Some people need a full schedule of activities inside and outside of the home to achieve a level of happiness that directly brings down their level of stress. Some people think that they need this full schedule, but keeping up with journal writing, entertaining guests, being a part of a sports league, and having their children enrolled in numerous extracurricular activities is only causing more stress in their lives.

For a large part of my adult life, I have struggled with priorities.  Every person's priorities are different, as I tried to illustrate above, so reading something (such as this article) is not a one-size-fits-all solution to happiness in the home. What an article such as this CAN do is to offer others insight into how I achieve "home happiness" and maybe offer something that others can take away and use in their own pursuit of home happiness.

1. Don't clean (incessantly). I don't let garbage pile to the ceiling or in any way let my home get to the point that child services or the CDC would be worried about the state of my living space, but neither do I worry about making the bed every day, doing dishes every day, vacuuming every day, or putting away accumulated junk in spaces such as the living room every day. I am horrified at the thought of someone "just stopping by" to visit me; the feeling that my house must be perfect is so ingrained in me, that I will probably never shake this paranoia of unannounced visitors. That paranoia aside though, I have learned that it's really okay to not have a perfect house, and the less time I spend on cleaning is more time I have to be happy. Eventually, I will have maid service who will handle the nitpicky stuff like vacuuming and dusting, and then the other stuff won't seem so annoying.


2. Don't do yard work. While I am in college, my income level is at the point where the government considers me below poverty level. My education is more important than my pocketbook, so this classification does not bother me in the least. It does mean that I have to be creative about how to make ends meet and to not spend money frivolously.  But there is something I spend $20 every two weeks on that, while others might find it frivolous, I find it a necessity to keeping me sane and happy: yard service. Yes, I am below poverty level, yet I pay someone to come cut my grass (a luxury usually associated with those of greater means). This makes me so happy that the cost (which is itself very small) is worth it.


3. Don't cook (every single day). I value healthy meals, I really do. Grilled chicken and fresh green beans are my idea of a great meal. There is one problem: I hate to cook. Hate it. So how do you eat healthy while feed yourself and your family, and do this when you hate to cook? Well, the ideal solution would be to hire a personal chef, but seeing as how a personal chef would cost a bit more than the $20 I spend every two weeks for a yard person, that is one (more) luxury I can't have now. So how do I solve this dilemma? Like cleaning, cooking is a necessary evil; it is something I must do whether I like it or not. But like cleaning, I only do it when necessary.  I am not beyond grabbing McDonald's or going to sit down at Bob Evans if the budget permits. So yeah, I don't have a perfectly clean house or perfectly cooked meals, but I'm okay with this and not having to cook or clean every single day makes me happy.


4. Work on my passions. I love writing. I love photography. I don't have time to "chase the light" as much as I'd like. I get writer's block or distracted like a dog spotting a squirrel far too often to write as consistently as I'd like. Even though I don't do these things as much as I'd like, I DO do them enough that I am a happier person for them. And while my son is gone on his 4-6 week trip to Georgia, I suspect that there will be a LOT less housekeeping and cooking and a LOT more "working on my passions."


5. Goof off. I play World of Warcraft. I also play in Second Life (though, I don't play much in SL now, unfortunately). I read lots of fiction. I use StumbleUpon far more than is necessary. I tickle my son to hear him laugh. I speak in goofy voices, again, to make him laugh. I cut out paper snowflakes and make tents out of kitchen chairs and sheets, all with my son. I act like a kid, I laugh, I have fun, and I don't worry that I left the plate on the table next to me after finishing lunch.

I am not Suzy Homemaker and never will be. I don't want to be. My idea of a perfect home life is not having dinners cooked from scratch and on the table by 6pm every night. My idea of a perfect home life is not cleaning and dusting every day and yelling at my son to stop climbing on the furniture or fuss at him for eating a snack in the living room. My idea of a perfect home life is not being a literal soccer mom and having those home and garden sales "parties." My idea of a perfect home is not about being "perfect."

I want maid service and a personal chef, things that even a middle class American can easily have. Yes, I've been pricing them. I can get one maid service to come to my home every two weeks to do the nitpicky stuff I don't want to do for about $50 every two weeks.  I can get a personal chef to cook me and my son a month's worth of dinners for $400. I want to keep my lawn service. I don't want to cart my son around to an extracurricular activity five days a week. I want to be able to pursue my passions and maybe even get a paycheck from those passions one day. I want to be able to goof off to keep my mind young, reflexes sharp, and smile lines on my face.

You can never get back the time you lose with loved ones.  You can never get back time you lose with yourself. So why waste that time on things that are not important? Will my son be a better person if I make him do pee wee football and baseball (when he's already stated that he really doesn't want to do them)? I doubt it. Will I be a better person if I have a floor so clean you can eat off of it? No, and what's the point anyhow? I have plates, you just might have to wash one first.

I am sitting here on the couch with a laptop on my lap and glancing up from this article I'm writing to look around me from time to time. What I see is a stack of clothing on the floor, ready to be sorted and folded so they can be packed for my son's trip.  What I see is a suitcase and backpack piled on the floor near the clothes. What I see is a dusty television, a carpet that needs to be steam cleaned, a plate left over from my lunch, and an empty soda can from the same. What I see are four kitchen chairs -- in my living room -- and a sheet on the floor between them from where my son and I played at making a tent. What I see is a happy five year-old on the Internet searching for "Sid, The Science Kid" -- all by himself. What I see is slight chaos, and in that chaos is immeasurable happiness.

Note: I am an A-type personality with ADHD. Having a messy house really does a number on my being able to concentrate when writing and makes me all itchy and twitchy. I feel calmer and more able to focus when the house is immaculate, but the act of cleaning or of being anal-retentive about keeping it clean is a constant source of stress for me. Of all the tips above, the housecleaning one is the most controversial for me and the hardest for me to live wholly by -- which is why you can find me at 4am cleaning the house like a mad woman from time to time. For the most part, I squish down that control-freak part of me when it comes to the house and just remind myself, "Whether the house is immaculate or not is not important, the time you spend with your son is what is important."  That helps. That helps so much.

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Poem: Asunder

Pain tears through, ripping apart joy

Selfishness and immaturity demand payment

That payment is the rending of two souls.

Ich habe Angst.

"I'll miss you so much" echoes over and over

It draws hot, salty tears and incapacitates

But a sociopath has no conscience to care.

Du hast Schadenfreude.

Days until my death are counted down

Fünf, vier, drei, zwei, eins

A piece of me is taken.

Ich bin nicht vollständig.

Remain strong, put on an actor's mask

Hope that the careless surgery

Does not scar him as it does me.

Bleib sicher, meiner süßer.

The surgeon does not care who he hurts

As long as he gets to wield the knife

And revel in his self-centered desires.

Die Klinge ist scharf.

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Flash Fiction: This Night

I was honored to read this story at the annual Oxford Writing Festival at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio on March 26, 2012.

This Night

Inspired by the song “This Night” by Black Lab.

The rain was heavy, but without an accompanying wind, it fell straight down in sheets. Thick drops drummed on the worn leather of his duster and cowboy hat. The sound was loud, but not loud enough to drown out his labored breathing. His head bowed in sorrow and the gun dangled from his lanky fingers, only a whisper of a breeze away from falling from his hand.

The body lay twenty paces from him in a pool of water that was rapidly turning red. He did not have to look to know that there was no longer life in it. His aim had been true and when the bullet is silver, there is no coming back.

A flash of lightning brightened the sky in an accusatory manner. Reflections in the water at his feet revealed the nearby church that loomed over him and the angel perched on the steeple who had been the sole witness to the horror performed in its presence. The gun dropped from his hand and he fell numbly to his knees with a pained gasp.

The ghosts of some of those he had ended under her tutelage haunted him on that lonely street: He had silenced Michael’s infectious laugh; he had dimmed Denise’s sparkling eyes; he had proven Richard’s endearing optimism false; and he had halted Tessa’s sharp intellect. Every victim had a name. Every victim had a face.  Every victim had a personality. Every victim had been his.

He raised his head slowly, woodenly, and blinked away the raindrops that filled his eyes.  The body was changing now, as he knew it would. He had known for weeks that the end would be like this, and she had never even suspected. The kills were for her, all of them, especially this last one. He had pulled the trigger to free her from her own madness, more than to free him from her.

Crawling on hands and knees to her, he knelt reverently at her side.  He brushed her long blonde hair, dyed dark by the rain and the night, from her face and bent down to kiss her forehead. She was naked now, but he didn’t cover her; he knew that she wouldn’t have wanted that. She was glorious in her half-wolf, half-female form, and more glorious in her human form, even in death.

She had made him who he was. She had delivered him to the coven so that he could be reborn to the night. “We will be the Adam and Eve of our races,” she had proclaimed.  The truth was that they had both become Cain, killing their brothers, human or otherwise. He succumbed to her madness, reveling in the bloodshed and in pleasing her. She was his Lady Macbeth, his Pandora, his Lilith. She was his drug; her offered blood made him even more drunk on her.

There were things he had done, things he regretted. He blamed her when his conscience became too much to bear. As she stood apart from him in the street, he knew that to end the killing, he had to kill the one he loved. As the rain poured down he wept for them both, and she came to him with a smile on her wolfish face.

He pulled the trigger.

She was dead and her heart was now as his. It was not beating. It was still.  But only he lived on.

The scent of her blood stirred that familiar hunger in him, but he ignored it. He remained there, cradling her head in his hands and mourning her as the skies wept and the angel witnessed.

Perhaps now, he could find peace.

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Writing Prompt: I'll never let go, Jack

From Wordpress.com's The Daily Post entry from 3 May 2011 titled "Change the end of any famous story, true or fiction":

Change the end of any famous story, true or fiction. Perhaps Darth Vader isn’t Luke’s father. Or maybe Nixon was never elected president. Pick any story, true or fiction, from the real world or a book or movie, and change the last few pages or moments of the story.

Think about an ending that has always bothered you or you thought could have been better. Now is your chance to fix it.

James Cameron's Titanic

This scene has always bothered me, not only because the "never let go" line is cheesy, but because she actually does let him go (to sink into the ocean in that dramatic way), and that is quite hypocritical.  Well, I decided to fix this scene. Enjoy.    

The water was frigid, but they had both made it to the surface. Jack tugged on Rose's life vest, yelling over the din of the scared and the dying, "Just keep swimming!" As they swam, they passed those who drowned, but had risen back to the surface of the midnight ocean by the bulky white life vests they wore. Jack spotted a large, ornately carved mahogany board in the water ahead of them, likely the headboard from a bed in a first-class cabin, and he steered her towards it, feeling a ray of hope for their survival.

Jack guided his charge, weighed down by her ornate gown and graced with lips that were blue from the icy cold of the unforgiving sea, on to the board. It bobbed precariously, threatening to toss her back into the water, but with Jack's help Rose was finally safe on the board and out of the murderously cold water. As he attempted to follow her up on the makeshift raft, the board teetered and suddenly gave way, rising up in the air from the added weight and dumping them both back unceremoniously into the water.

Panicked, Jack again frantically pushed Rose on the board before swimming around to the head of it and gripping her hands. "You'll be alright now," he uttered in a gasping breath.

One of the crewmen who had went down with the boat was nearby, and he started to blow his whistle, piercing the sound of the distraught passengers. Jack and Rose watched him, shivering, until Jack murmured, "The boat's coming back for us, Rose. Hold on just a little bit longer." He nodded at her, attempting to remain optimistic, even as he felt that the boats would not return, or at least not return in time to save the others in the water, including himself.

Jack knew that if he remained in the water much longer, hypothermia would kill him, but he knew that as long as Rose remained out of the water, she had a better chance to survive the cold until the boats returned. His first thought was one of resignation and even contentment, knowing that the woman he loved would be safe; this thought alone was one that nearly took the will the fight for his own life from him, but something inside of him flared as the clamoring din began to soften as Death claimed victim after victim. Jack decided to fight.

Kissing Rose's hands, he pried himself loose from her, determined to use the last bit of strength he had left to save himself. He shushed her, quieting her frantic whispers to stay with her as he promised to return, and then swam over to where the dead bobbed on the water. With a quiet growl of a war cry, he managed to rip lose the first vest, securing it to himself as he watched its former occupant slip under the water's surface. He then removed another vest, and another, until he had six vests in total. He laced them all together and towed them back to the pseudo-raft, fighting the stinging, needle-like pain of the water and his body's constant demands for rest.  He could not rest now, or he would certainly die.

When he reached the raft, he clung to it, holding it steady as he instructed Rose, "Rose, I need you to turn carefully. I know you're cold and tired, but you have to do this for me." He took her hands, swimming around the edge of the board with the vests floating out behind him like a white tail and getting her situated on the board so there would be enough room for them both.

"Now, when I climb up, the board may try to flip again, Rose.  I need you to lean into the part that is rising and try to use your weight to keep it down."

Rose was so cold, her teeth chattered loudly as she stuttered, "Y-y-yes," and then the braced herself for Jack's attempt.  He shoved the six life vests under the end of the board opposite Rose to buoy it and then moved towards the middle of the board.  He glanced at her and nodded, ready to start his attempt, and then pulled himself from the water.  The board rocked precariously, but with Rose's weight at one end and the vests holding up the board at the other, he was able to pull himself from the bitterly cold grasp of the ocean.

He spent the next few minutes gently guiding them both back to Rose's original position on the board, pressed tightly together to share what warmth they both had left. The vests which were still under the board helped keep them out of the water, and their bodies pressed together helped offer comfort.
Jack hugged Rose tightly to him and murmured in her ear, "We'll make it through this, Rose. Never let go of that."

Her blue lips met his in a shivering kiss and she whispered, "I'll never let go, Jack."  As if to prove this, she tightened her arms around him, clinging to him.

Later, both Jack and Rose were rescued. Rose found the Heart of the Ocean in her pocket. They sold it and lived like a king and queen - but without any fear of an untimely beheading - until they both died old and happy together.

The End

Exercise: Now it's your turn! Share your creation in the comments.

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