What Would Someone Think About Our Lives?
Let’s just kick this off by saying that (1) we’re not rich and (2) we don’t have a cleaning service. But we ARE watching Downton Abbey right now AND I read this old post and wondered what a housekeeper would say about our lives. It’s one thing to write or even photograph your life and put it online. It’s another thing to have someone move through your home, observing every square inch.
On one hand, that housekeeper only knows the version she imagines by looking at clues. On the other hand, you can pick up a lot of details if you’re opening and closing drawers, reading receipts, noticing which objects move and which stay in the same place, week after week.
And then there was this:
A week or two after she told me about the pregnancy, I noticed spots of blood by the toilet. She told me about the miscarriage when I left. I acted as if I didn’t already know. She slouched. I wasn’t sure what to say.
What story does my house tell? A person who keeps a broken laundry basket but neatly recopies lists if they grow too messy. The labeled meals in the freezer. The bar of chocolate, several years expired, that I can’t seem to toss when we clean out the pantry. The lack of televisions. The multiple vacuum cleaners. The stacks of books. The wooden ducks.
All of it tells a story; though would everyone tell themselves the same story by walking through the same house?
2 comments
I wish I was someone who didn’t care what people thought, but this is a major reason (outside of expense) why I wouldn’t want to hire a housekeeper. I have enough anxiety around maintenance coming into our unit and they see enough.
All that said, it is interesting to think about the stories these people have of others that they work for, given that have a very intimate insight into those worlds. There’s always this assumption that having money makes all problems go away and though money is definitely important to alleviate a lot of problems, I also have begun seeing those living with a lot of wealth as inhibited by the money, almost as an addiction. So many stay in situations solely because change throws them into something that could take away the safety net. It’s almost sad.
And now I’m off to scrub the toilets
I have been lusting over the idea of a cleaning service, a person who came in every 2 weeks and deep cleaned…but it is a little scary to think of someone witnessing all the things in your house. I feel like I’d have a hard time not cleaning before the cleaning person comes. Buying time though sounds amazing… all the time spent mopping and swiffering and scrubbing toilets (although Bryce does those since I do the cat boxes, waste for waste!) could be spent doing something else.
I thought a lot about what people thought going through our house during the showings — did they notice that the office had a nursery decal but also a library of books about childfree living? Did they find the closet full of stuff to make margaritas and manhattans? Did they just see the books, or did they read the spines? Did they look in the kitchen cabinets and find the s’mores fixings that expired a year or two ago? I feel like my dusty corners and yours aren’t that dissimilar, maybe. 🙂