Therapeutic Housecleaning

I won't say that I enjoy housecleaning. If I could pay someone to come in and do it for me, I'd do it without a second thought. But I've been considering the role of housecleaning as a therapeutic act.

Right now I have a strong urge to give the house a really thorough scrubbing--I'm talking washing down walls, moving all the furniture out, the whole thing. The long-drawn-out construction project of putting in new stairs has made me put off that sort of cleaning for over a year; it's hard to put in that kind of work knowing that next week everything could be coated with sawdust again. However, it's becoming increasingly evident that the job is long overdue.

I think it's losing our dog that has really given me the drive to get going on the project, though. It's not that I want to "wipe out" traces of her. Far from it. I miss her every day. So there's something else going on. I was discussing this feeling with my mother, and she has encountered the same thing at times of loss in her life. My theory is that for some people, cleaning has a threefold effect: one, it simply makes one feel better if things are clean and tidy; two, it gives one something constructive to do; and three, that it is something over which one can exercise control. This becomes especially important at times when we feel helpless or not in control of events.

At times like this I tend to want to be very organized in my housecleaning efforts, but it doesn't usually work out that way. On a day when I'm not intending anything of the sort, I'll suddenly find that I've emptied a closet and am culling out things like crazy. Or out of the blue I'll notice how filthy the windowsill over the sink looks and without second thought I'm hauling out cleaner and cloths and giving the whole area a thorough scrubbing. It's sort of random, but I suppose it gets the job done.

So far I've only scratched the surface, not dug into any of the really heavy jobs. They're coming soon, though. I can feel it in my rubber gloves.