Jennifer McKenzie
Romance--Boy meets girl. Romantic Suspense--Boy meets girl with dead bodies.
Saturday, July 21, 2007
The Legacy We Chose
I was thinking about this yesterday as I rushed to clean my house for company. What are my children going to take away from their experience with me? Will they remember that we'd go out for ice cream or sing Gretchen Wilson's "There Goes The Neighborhood" while driving? Or will they remember that every time company came over, I was a nutcase.
That's what I took away from living with my Mom. When company was on its way, my mother was frantic as she dusted, scoured and mopped our home. Everything had to look perfect. We had to portray the sedate well behaved middle class family that seemed to be all the rage in the 70's. At least, for my Mom it was all the rage. I hated company.
Frankly, I still do. Because I have a compulsion to do the same thing when people are coming to visit. Not the whole sedate, well behaved thing. That's expecting too much of a mouthy wife of a redneck, but the frantic cleaning. The worst part is that I don't have the basics.
My Mom was (and is) as stringent housecleaner. Her garden is stellar. Her floors are shiny and her closets are organized. I am not (and never have been) a very good house keeper. (In my defense, and as a complete aside, I will say that when I lived by myself, my house was CLEAN. It's picking up after others that I'm not so good at) As a result, when I go on these little rampages, the whirlwind is a little edgier and a lot more frustrating. And my kids get caught in the big wind.
Me and the boys have an ongoing battle. When I clean, every single mess they make AS I'm cleaning becomes a little bit more annoying. They find my preoccupation with carpet cleaner and the vacuum very disruptive to their expectations. (I swear they view me as a cruise director) And THEY'RE BOYS!!!!
They leave dirty clothes on the floor. Sand from the beach is as common as the dust on my furniture and they do not have the concept of "Don't step on the floor. It's wet." I won't even discuss the three dogs.
So, I wondered. Is this the legacy I'm leaving my children? This frantic bullshit of running around with a bottle of 409 and wielding the vacuum like an avenging cleaning demon? Will my children practice this neurotic behavior or worse, expect their spouse to practice it?
This is one of those little quirks in my behavior that I don't like much. I will say that it's much improved from my younger days. Though frantic, I am less crazy than I used to be about this. But as I scrub and spray, I know those eyes are watching me. And I have no control over what they do with that information.
I'm hoping the ice cream, the singing, and the bedtime stories outweigh the crazy stuff I do. This isn't a trait from my mother that I point to and say "Isn't that wonderful?"
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Name:: Jennifer McKenzie Location:: California
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