I'm the best wife, the best mom, the best friend, the best daughter, the best housewife, the best everything!! I'm the BEST! I'm soooo the best. I'm the best, right? Am I the best? I'm at least good at most of the stuff I do, right? I think. Well, sometimes. Nevermind! I suck. I suck at everything! Everybody else is awesome and I SUCK!
I want to be awesome at everything (or at least awesome at something). Doesn't everyone? I mean, don't you want to be the best juggler there ever was? Or the best ping pong player? Or the best karaoke singer at your favorite bar? Or the best at balancing a broomstick on the palm of your hand?
The problem is: my squishy, deteriorating, putty-like mommy brain can't focus on more than one thing at a time. So, for example, if I decide one day that I'm going to be the best housekeeper in the world, then that's what I do. That's all I do. I make lists. Lots and lots of extremely detailed lists. I spend hours contemplating what I think I should be able to accomplish in a single day/week/month. I Google the hell out of "Cleaning Lists" and "Time Management" and "How to be the Best Housekeeper Ever." How could I not be the best at cleaning? I've researched it.
And then I start my strict cleaning regiment.
I'm awesome! My house is so clean! Come on over, bitches! I'm not afraid of your impromptu visits! Not at all! This is how my house ALWAYS looks. 'Cause I'm awesome!
This lasts for about a week (if I'm lucky). In that week, I hover over everyone in my family, cleaning up after them like I have OCD. God forbid my husband uses a plate for his food. I watch him like a vulture until he's done with his sandwich. "Are you done yet?" Once he confirms his meal finale, I swoop in to grab his plate and promptly load it into the dishwasher.
It's worse with my kids during the "OCD clean week." I have an internal nervous breakdown every time they play with more than one toy at once. "You didn't put the last toy away?! We ALWAYS put the last toy away before we take something else out! Don't you know ANYTHING?!" As if we've had that rule in the past.
Regardless of the fact that I'm emotionally abusing my children by either yelling at them to clean up their shit or ignoring them entirely in order to clean and clean and clean, my house is still looking awesome at this point (which is all that matters because I need to be the BEST). But, after alienating everyone in my household (and in my life) with my pseudo OCD, I realize that I may be going "a little" overboard.
This is where it all goes wrong.
Garbage, scraps of paper, fast food bags, toys, dirty dishes, dust, spiders, raisins (how do raisins end up everywhere?) crushed up Cherios, sticky floors....skanky everything invades my home! I don't really know how it happens so fast and really, I don't care at that point.
What happened? I gave up. Why? Because if I can't achieve perfection, then screw it all. Now I don't want to do anything but sit on the couch, check my Facebook 4,298 times in 8 hours and ugly cry at commercials. Oh well. I'll predictably start my next never-ending, relentless pursuit of perfection next week.
