They Say the Kitchen is the Heart of the Home; It Might Just Be the Heart of Me

  I am sure you have heard it said that the kitchen is the heart of the home, maybe you've said it yourself. I have always cringed at those words. I have a love hate relationship with my kitchen. Okay, mostly hate. I hate all of the messes that I make when I cook. Cooking is exhausting in itself but it also comes with dirty dishes, counters and floors. I don't often clean my cooking mess the same day that I cook, I usually leave it for about 12 hours and let it suck the joy of cooking right out of me.

  My first kitchen was a tiny little hallway into the suite that I shared with three other girls when I was in college. I used the kitchen more than the other girls because I had to cut my meal plan in order to  afford tuition and housing. I spent $25 a week on groceries and made all of my food. Okay, not all of it. Keith always paid when we went out to eat and that was fairly often. My poor roommates had to deal with the mess I left in the sink. If I had a lot of school work, I would tell myself that I didn't have time to clean or do dishes. I often waited until Friday afternoon to clean up from the week. After projects were turned in, papers written, and tests were taken I could think about pesky things like a weeks' worth of dishes piled next to the sink waiting to be washed. By hand.

  My next kitchen was also a hallway in the apartment I shared with my husband after we got married. That semester was very strange. I am glad that we don't have to relive it. I was student teaching and that meant spending 7:30 to 4:00 at school everyday. I also had a full load of school work to complete at the same time. It was equal to being a full-time student with a full-time job. Meanwhile, my husband was in his last semester and only had nine hours, not even a full-time student. While I was gone at school he would make the apartment look perfect and expect to be treated like a hero when I got home. It was annoying. I felt like he wanted me to be happy with him because he did my housework for me. It was my work because I was the woman. I didn't see it as my work, I saw it as our work. We lived there. We ate there. At least I never had to do the dishes.

  There was another apartment, I barely remember it. It had a nice big kithen with a dishwasher, but I hardly remember using it. My husband had started working full-time and I was in my second semester of student teaching. Once again, full-time course work along with full-time unpaid internship in the classroom. I didn't like to go home alone in the afternoons so I would usually go to a coffee shop to work on projects after school. Then it would be rush hour and I didn't like driving back to our suburb apartment at that time. Usually, Keith would meet me for dinner and we would head back later in the evening. That's probably why I don't remember it, we hardly spent any time there. 

  That spring, we bought our first house. I was pregnant with our first baby and unbelievably exhausted. We kept our house very clean. Thanks to Keith. I knew that he would clean anything I left out and sometimes I would just let him do it and be glad. Most of the time though, I tried to have everything picked up and cleaned up before he got home because I wanted to just relax with him. The problem was that no matter how clean I had the place, he would still walk in the door and start cleaning. It made me feel like I wasn't good enough and I resented it. A great deal of bitterness built up inside me and I sometimes left everything undone because I knew he would find something no matter how much cleaning I had done. What was the point, I reasoned.

  Now we have 3 kids and the days of having a very clean house at all times are over. Keith is still better at cleaning than I am but I try to appreciate it rather than resent it. Actually, he is better at "picking up" than I am. There is a difference between "picking up" and cleaning. He also doesn't touch the kitchen anymore, unless I specifically ask him to clean the floor or unload the dishwasher.  

  We understand each other much better now, so housework is less of a fuss. I realize that he has a need to do some cleaning in order to unwind. For example, when we have something to really think about and talk through, I sit down on the couch or the bed. I can't do anything while I'm thinking. He walks around picking up toys, he can't do nothing while he's thinking. He isn't cleaning because I didn't do enough, he cleans because he needs to. That realization was liberating for me.

  The last few weeks I have been doing  a lot of extra cooking so the kitchen has really suffered. Most days I have more than one dishwasher load of dishes so the sink is never empty. Even if it is empty, it only lasts a few minutes before someone's sippy cup gets tossed in there.

  We spent the entire weekend making messes in the kitchen and then leaving the mess in order to run off to soccer or church. Every time I walked in the kitchen, I wanted to do something about it but I was too exhausted. I am fast approaching my third trimester of pregnancy. I thought I would clean it before bed on Sunday night but we ended up letting the kids play outside until bedtime. I fell asleep wondering how I was going to clean up the next day and still homeschool my children well.

  Monday was a fantastic day. I sat with the boys while they did their morning school work then I sent them outside so I could focus on the kitchen. Eventually, I locked them out so they would leave me alone. They were fine. I could see and hear them through the kitchen window. Everly hung around with me and "helped." It took an hour and  a half to load and unload the dishes, put away all of the things that were out of place, clean the counters and table and sweep and mop the floor. 

  Once the kitchen was clean, I felt awesome. I felt free to focus on other things. The messy kitchen weighed on me mentally, physically, and emotionally. I felt like a failure as a woman and a wife and a mother as long as the kitchen was a mess. It didn't matter that I have done some of my best cooking ever in the past week. It didn't matter that we sat down together and had hot, homemade food every night last week. We even had the neighbors over for an impromptu chili dinner because I had made a huge pot so I offered and they had no plans so they joined us. Those things should have made me feel like a successful home cook but I allowed the disorder of the kitchen to cause me to feel like an utter failure. 

  It seems that my kitchen is not only the heart of my home, it is actually connected to my heart. What goes in, what comes out, the work in between and the state it is left in are all connected to my thoughts, feelings, and emotions. It seems a bit ridiculous but having suffered a guilty conscience over messes in the kitchen or eating poorly for lack of a  good meal plan has finally brought me to the unwelcome realization that there is something about the kitchen. I don't want it to matter but it does matter.

  I don't want to have to cook and clean simply because I am the woman of the house but somebody's gotta do it and I am a bit of a control-freak. My 23 year old self would not recognize my 29 year old self. For a long time I would have preferred to work outside of the home and pay others for childcare and help around the house and take-out food. I tried to stay home when I had my first baby but only lasted a few months before getting depressed  and lonely and going back to work part-time. I knew I couldn't work full-time but I also couldn't stay home full-time. 

  I felt like I owed it to women in history who fought for the right to work outside the home if they wanted to. I felt like staying home in this day and age was like going back in time. I felt like my degree was going to waste, that I needed to teach part-time because eventually I would want to work full-time and I needed to keep my foot in the door if I was ever going to have the career I dreamed of.  Work made me feel important, housework made me feel very low and worthless.

  On one hand, I feel like anybody could do this, there is no special skill involved. On the other hand, I never feel like I have kept the house or kitchen well enough. Since I stay home now, this is the only thing I have to do but I still can't do it all. Alternatively, I put a great deal of energy into making things perfect and feel spent when I am done, with little satisfaction to keep me going. I feel like I am the only woman in the world who feels this way, but I know that I am not. 

  Last Monday was the first time that I felt satisfaction from thoroughly cleaning the kitchen. It felt awesome so I reveled in it. I felt good about myself and I let that feeling really take hold because it is rare. Maybe the state of my kitchen is of no importance to the world, but it is important to me, and it is important for my family. It turned out that it mattered for the neighbors last week as they got to eat dinner with us.

  When I turn off all of my own negative ideas about myself and my role, I can unashamedly enjoy the simplicity, though hard fought battle, of a clean and comfortable kitchen that functions as the heart of our home and is an extension of my heart for my family, as well as, friends and neighbors who may happen to step in and enjoy a meal with us. It is small, painfully small sometimes, but I no longer believe it to be insignificant. It is hard work but I finally feel the value in it.