Rush To Relax

Deb: The other day I was pushing the limits on the kitchen cleanup when a simple thought occurred. I was picking up paper with one hand, emptying the dishwasher with the other, while making eyes at the lower door window with its puppy nose imprints, glass cleaner in my paw. All of this is normal for me. I have no issue with wanting things to be tidy and clean. But it suddenly dawned on me that I was moving at the speed of light. Truly. My dogs were staring in the direction of my scent and couldn’t even see me. I was just that fast.

And I thought, Why am I rushing? And how many times a day do I do this rushing? I realized with some alarm that I am so in love with the relax that I am rushing, panicked to accomplish all my chores in an attempt to achieve the ultimate chore reward—the relax. So I thought about it and was reminded of that old classic tune ... “Whistle while you work, Hitler is a jerk, Mussolini bit his weenie, now it doesn’t work.” ... sorry, got off track there with memories of grade three recess. 

What I thought about was The Seven Dwarfs (should I have capped that?). Is that their official moniker—The Seven Dwarfs?

I thought of their peppy happy little song, sans Hitler. What I really thought of was this idea of being happy at your work. I don’t mean your artistic work, your “trained for” work, your passionate work. I mean your toilet cleaning, counter wiping work. I mean the work that never ends. Hmmm, another song comes to mind. “It just goes on and on, my friends”...

I’m talking the crap work, you know what I mean. I strived to break the Olympic record for the empty dishwasher-clean stove-sweep floor-athon. Although I missed a shot at the podium, I was chuffed at achieving my personal best. Then it hit me. I was rushing to relax. These cleanup minutes have become empty time. They hold no value to me because I am simply getting through them. Am I really truly going to throw these moments away?

No. I need to pimp my clean. I need for it not to be the lousy wasted moments of my life. So tonight as I cleaned up, I put on Annie Lennox and I danced around the kitchen as I sashayed with the clean pots and pans, worthy partners all. I am vowing to take the piss out of tidy, the crap out of clean. I am going to rock that garbage disposal till it screams for limp scallion stems. 

Although the Seven Dwarfs got second billing, they had it goin’ on.

Barbara: Ha! I do very much relate to this, Deb, as I have found myself, on many an occasion, rushing through my chores. Or worse, nursing a sense of stress that I’m not doing them quickly enough, or that I haven’t yet gotten to them, or that as soon as I’ve done it, I will have to do it all over again. Why do I (we) get so stressed about something as simple and fundamentally non-taxing as The Chore? Deb, I love your Personal Best, Seven Dwarfs initiative! In fact, it reminds me of something a yoga instructor once told me: when you do a chore (ie, like washing a dish), it’s the best time to unwind and put yourself in the moment. Take that dish and really observe it as you clean it, really, as corny as it sounds, be in that moment. With your dancing and singing, Deb, you’ve shown us how to do it. Now if only I could get you to tape yourself doing it and post it here so we can really see how you do it :)

When A Nag Is Not A Horse

Barbara: My daughter blurted out a comment the other day that hit a nerve. And while I don’t want to betray her confidence, I did think it was the kind of subject apropos to throw around here for a bit. She had something she wanted to discuss with her boyfriend but was worried she’d come across as a “nag”. This thing she wanted to discuss was neither a demand nor a recurring issue between them; it was more along the lines of a request that he might or might not like. Okay, enough about them. Now to the subject: ARE we nags, or do we FEEL like nags, or do our significant others BELIEVE we’re nags?

And whoa, Nelly, no hating on men, women, significant others, or nags for that matter, equine or other. Just a debate on the difference between how things are and how things are perceived.

Please believe me when I say I am not dissing my husband here—I love him madly, you know that and he knows that––but I will confess that over the years I’ve had my own issues with requests. If I bug him about the tap dripping, am I a nag? If he doesn’t feel like fixing the tap, does he make me FEEL like a nag (meaning, it’s my fault I feel this way) or has he actually ever SAID I was a nag? Honestly, I don’t know!

When I look back over the years, I can remember often feeling that I was a nag, but as I write this I’m not sure if that comes from a literal experience or from my own ingrained response that just because someone doesn’t welcome my suggestions (“Honey, would you mind fixing the tap?”) that their negative reaction turns into a REJECTION OF ME, thus turning the whole sordid affair into an implied accusation that I am a … NAG.

Over the years I’ve gotten a lot better at not twisting people’s responses into indictments against me (it’s win-win, if I misinterpret, I’m an idiot, and if I’m right, I don’t wanna know). But this nag thing keeps nagging at me. And the reason I brought up my daughter’s experience is because I thought their generation might be past all that (especially modern urban creative types). But clearly, no.

So, here’s what I told her—and what I try to tell myself. If you want something, there’s nothing wrong with putting it out there (even if it’s an unwelcome chore). And if the other person doesn’t like it, that doesn’t mean they don’t like you. Even if it takes 200 reminders that the tap needs fixing J

Deb: The word Nag has been around as long as I’ve been alive. And sadly it has always been attached to the female of the species. But I have seen male Nags. And really, to me, Nag simply means someone who is responsible. Someone who wants to get things done that need to be done. Man or woman. It is the person in a relationship that is trying to keep things in running order and keep things looking nice. 

I have witnessed first hand on occasion those who overuse the Nag moniker and they are scary. But my general take on it is that those who are calling someone a Nag, are generally those who don’t give a damn how anything works and are even less interested in keeping it in order.  Do I sound bitter? I have a husband who does more than his share. And a father and a brother who do the same, so I am really not speaking from family experience. My bitterness around this has nothing to do with personal experience. 

I just hate when woman are saddled with these unfair labels and I think that this one has been passed down through generations, which is probably what made your daughter cop to it. There is nothing naggie about this lovely girl.