The love & the mess; musings from a mother inside a messy house.

Mykaio is one and a half years old & he is on a mission every waking moment to explore, deconstruct & engage his world. It’s one of the most magical experiences of my life, witnessing my heart-that-lives-outside-of-my-body experience everything under the sun with wonder & fervor. And it comes with a never ending battle to tidy up the wake of disarray that he leaves behind him literally every waking second of every day. Everything ends up on the floor. EVERY SINGLE THING ENDS UP ON THE FLOOR. Now for some this may be, meh, not that big of a deal. For me it is massively triggering. You see, I grew up trying to control my life as a way to cope with how out of control it felt and actually was. It took me many many years of therapy to be able to succinctly communicate that last sentence. One of those many coping strategies is to create cleanliness & organization in my environment. It is soothing to me. It helps my inner environment feel more organized. Which in turn helps me to feel safe, which then helps everything else. On the flip side, when I am in a chaotic environment, I feel chaotic inside. It’s not fun.

Cut to this little human that I love more than I could have ever imagined, creating chaos in our house all day everyday. It’s a juxtaposition. The love & the mess. It’s teaching me some stuff I didn’t want to learn – like life likes to do (I know you feel me on this). I think there is some universal mathematical formula: the more love, the more mess. I think that’s how it goes. When we need to have it all neat & orderly, we miss out on love. What is more full of love? A dance party with my son in the middle of my messy ass living room, laughing until my face hurts... or doing dishes so that the sink isn’t full while my son begs me to give him my undivided attention and I continuously resist him to get the kitchen clean dammnit. I mean... Love IS messy. And for some of us (like me) we needed to create order in order to feel safe, first. It was the priority. Nothing is possible until there is safety. But the reality is — I’m safe now. I’ve slayed the dragons. I mean I’m not trying to test fate here – I have slayed the big obvious dragons. There are always deeper layers of healing. But that’s not the point. The point is... I have created a beautiful life that is safe & literally bursting with love. I am so proud of me for all the work that I did to make this life possible. It’s mundane & magical & I’m grateful AF. And now that love comes with a really big unending mess. It’s more than worth it. And it still triggers the fuck outta this human. So now I get to work on my relationship with the mess (cue sneaky hidden dragon). I get to learn to soften some more. I’m not gonna stop tidying, like ever, let’s be honest. But I am going to try to not let the mess make me miss out on the love that is happening right in the middle of it. At least that’s my intention.