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Language Log

Tuesday, Jun. 29, 2021 - 2:00 p.m.

Cleaners here today. It was a bit of an ordeal for me. After my tidying up of a few weeks ago, entropy was doing its work. It wasn’t as bad, but wasn’t good either. We didn’t manage to get things as ready to be cleaned as we could have but anyway.

The real problem was my shame and anxiety around having them in. It’s a stew of unfamiliar people in my space, feeling like I should greet them and be available, be friendly. But also shame at how dirty everything is. You know how people say, “our house is cluttered, not dirty.” Nah, our house is deadass dirty and I can’t help but feel like it’s all my fault. EITHER I should be doing it or I should be delegating or somehow being a good ringleader and getting everyone else to pitch in. But that, friends, is not in my skill set. I can take care of me, in a small apartment. That’s it. I’m not here to plan anything or tell anyone what to do, even if they’re willing (which some in my household are not).

Anyway, if you look around my house it’s like, Ah yes, I see that a mentally ill person is in charge of this. So I need support. That’s what the cleaners are but the internalized ableism and shame is, well, disabling. The anxiety around it is. So I’m hiding in the casita and texted them instructions and hopefully can pull the whole thing off without interacting with anyone. Here’s the thing: that’s the accommodation I need. That has to be ok. As many people as want to tell me that would be great. I feel like everyone would and yet it was still hard to do. So much pressure to mask and just too much to mask in this case.

So: permission to hire them. That’s a struggle every time.

Permission to not engage socially. Apparently that’s a struggle too.

But those are both what have to happen if we don’t want a house that’s so unpleasant.

Anyway.

After they’re done we need to start packing.

Unrelatedly:

I was looking at these lists of personal boundaries someone posted in one FB group. Well first of all if you go to Instagram and search for “boundaries” most of what you get is cringe as fuck. Anyway this was in a Satan group and they were somewhat better but don’t really speak to what my own needs are. I want to write a list that are more personal, particularly around preferences that seem like not a big deal to others but are to me. Not just to have them, which will be good, but some others mentioned how nice it would be to have the boundaries printed on cards to present or hand out. So I thought it might make a nice next project for me on the road: linocut or embroidered statements of personal boundaries. Linocuts could be printed on whatever.

Anyway, searching for ones that resonate.

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