But her story wasn’t remarkable to me simply because of its excellence.
Her story recounts the mundanity of a suburban housewife and mother who starts to reflect on her own invisibility, and the sadness associated with being little more than a footnote to her family’s achievements.
She fills her days with managing the details of her husband’s and children’s work and activities, planning meals, and curating her home in a way that is in keeping with what everyone else expects from her. She imagines having moments of creativity, but quashes those daydreams for fear of the mess she would make, and the way in which it would disrupt things for everyone else.
In the end, the sadness and invisibility are simply too much, and she curates an ending to it all that ensures she will not be a footnote.
My friend’s story is a very well written, disturbing, and haunting commentary on the unrealistic expectations we often develop for ourselves that have little if anything to do with who we really are.
I am a housewife and mom, but with no disrespect to other stay-at-home wives or moms—or
even working moms who feel crushed by similar expectations—I know that I will hopelessly fail at falling into this trap.
I can’t keep the living room rug free of food debris from my three-year-old, let alone carefully curate my home or existence. And until I read my friend’s cautionary tale about losing one’s identity to mundanity, I thought one of the reasons for my “failure” was because of my own selfishness.
You see, I cannot live my life without creating something on a fairly regular basis. I make no claim that I necessarily create “well.” On an also fairly regular basis, I look at current and newly finished projects, and can only see the glaring flaws. Whether it’s the bark on my daughter’s tree costume that failed to stick with the tacky glue recommended, or the really deformed peacock I painted at a local paint and drink spot, all I see is my own mediocrity.
Even so, I know that if I didn’t do something to express the hidden, deeper parts of my own soul, I would feel myself being erased. I think that’s just the way some of us are made. And I find that when other people I love create, and share, I feel inspired to create and share. It’s as if we are part of an ecosystem that thrives on each other’s breath and living spirit. It doesn’t matter if we are at different skill levels, or that we may create different things. The act of creating is the only commonality required to keep the system alive.
I look around me, and I see the clutter and debris of the mundane life I “curate.” I see the incomplete toy sets, dirty socks left on the sofa, baskets of clean laundry waiting to be folded, magazines, and broken items waiting for the next time I have my glue gun handy. I see the components of my current creation waiting to be assembled, and I sit here writing.
I tell myself I should be doing something else. I should be tidying up my home, and preparing it for guests. I should be trying to stay ahead of the three-person wrecking crew that my family and I are instead of writing, or thinking about other creative projects that I either need to finish, or would like to start. But needing to express something feels like an itch in the dead center of your back, when your arms are too short to reach.
When I think of the ease with which women, especially stay-at-home wives and mothers, become so consumed by the needs of their families that they disappear, I begin to embrace the fact that my struggle with clutter is at least somewhat related to the itch in the middle of my back that makes me crazy until I find a way to scratch. When I consider the way in which we can so easily lose ourselves, and fade into the background of those around us, I am grateful for the compelling urge I so often feel just to make something—anything.
Creating helps me to live in color, instead of fading into a beige existence. It keeps me alive. And I believe it demonstrates the value of creating and expression to my daughter.
Would I love to have a tidy home, carefully curated, and free of the debris of everyday living? Sometimes. But only because it would make life easier. And as I think about the word “easier,” I realize that I have never been about “easier.”
Perhaps that’s why I am part of the extended creative ecosystem with which I connect and to which I relate—because who I am in my soul just can’t breathe within a tidy, clutter free box of mundanity. I find the overwhelming ordinariness of beige, taupe, and clear crystal vases to be as threatening to who I am at my core, as a fire is to a forest.
I can’t fit any mold. I can’t curate the perfection of mundanity. So, I accept a sense of the tug of war between my need to “paint” over the plainness of everyday life, and my recognition of the chaos that it curates.
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