Day off

What to do on my day off...what to do... I wander from room to room, trying to get motivated and buckle down and do something productive-- or creative-- something to exercise my mind! Not that I don’t exercise my mind while I clean. I definitely do that! I can’t say that cleaning is a mindless job-- it isn’t. If you do it well, it takes a lot of common sense and some planning to be efficient and thorough. But once you have your routine down, you have a lot of room in the brain for deep, philosophical thinking. Probably not all the thoughts are quite as profound as they seem when they pop into the head while cleaning someone's toilet. Maybe the philosophizing is something I naturally do to make it seem more worthwhile.

I never dreamed that I would be where I am, “professionally.” Being a professional cleaner is not something I planned on. Maybe that is the problem-- that I didn’t really have a plan. I had dreams (more like fantasies) of being a horse jockey, then a horse trainer when I became over 5’ 4” when I was about 10. Then my goals sort of wandered between being an engineer (the practical part of me) and being a helicopter pilot (that sounds much better!) But, alas, I got married too young instead, and tried to create my identity through my husband, and well-- I lost myself. Long story. I lived a few decades thinking I had reached some sort of success with my husband, but I did not develop a career. I have a Bachelor’s degree (with honors!), but it is in pre-med and history. What do you do with that? So after losing the financial security of my marriage (and vowing to never depend on a man again), I determined to do whatever I had to do (within moral boundaries) to earn a living. What I didn’t know was how much cleaning would teach me.

But more on that later. Right now it’s my day off after a long weekend of cleaning, and I want to enjoy my Monday. It sure is a mess around here-- maybe I’d better go clean my kitchen floor now.