Attack of the all-purpose cleaner

Someone is going to be cleaning my house tomorrow. You have no idea how much this is bothering me. There's this wonderful woman who cleans M's mother's house, who does the most thorough job you can imagine, and she's going to be cleaning my house tomorrow. And it's bothering me. Any sane person would be elated that icky tasks like cleaning under the stove or behind the radiators will be done by someone else. I like cleaning, but even these tasks I pass over more often than I should. But still.

Someone is going to be cleaning my house, touching my belongings and judging me. Okay, so the last option isn't rational but that doesn't mean I'm not thinking it. I agreed to having this super spring cleaning in a moment of fatigue. And really, considering how busy work has been, getting someone to come in an give the place a hardcore once over is actually a good idea. However, March's good idea has now become June's issue of fixation.

I think the underlying issue is going to be that once the house is all spic and span, I won't have anything to do. I'm in a creative drout, so these days watering the plants, moderating a Star Wars message board and cleaning the house is what I do to relax. Add in my minor OCD about things being very much in their proper place and my serious issues with people touching things of mine, it feels like the makings of a flipout. This is going to sound exceptionally insane, but the whole idea of coming home tomorrow and finding something out of place is enough to make me cry. And I've made it through the last 10 days of work without shedding a tear. Home is sacred to me. The idea of someone strange being in there, even with the best of cleaning intentions, is making my quirks and compusions switch into overdrive.

I'm going to come home and things aren't going to be in their place. What a nightmare. It used to upset me so much to come home on Wednesdays from school when the cleaning ladies had been through my parents house. Which isn't to say I didn't appreciate things being clean, it's just one of those things I have. I just am not good with people moving my things.

Yes, I'm insane.

But I'm going to deal with the cleaning. Let it happen, because it needs to get done and I don't have the energy to do it. And it will soothe the compulsions of the other person in the house who has a big problem with dust and dirt and things never ever being clean enough.

There are bigger problems in the world.

HRH