I'm Hanging up My Hangups about Who Does The Housework

I'm getting more adept with a broom. Not a witchy broom. A sweeping broom. I was never even one of those goth girls in high school who stole library books about Wicca. I have always had a very low tolerance for religious things that have anything to do with the paranormal or spiritual world. It freaks me out to think of ghosts and spirits and the unknown. Could have something to do with my seeing "The Exorcist" at the theater when I was three. I HATE scary movies.

But what I was saying is that my sweeping skills have improved. I mean, there's still going to be clumps of pet hair found at inopportune moments, but I've gotten into the habit of daily sweeping. I know. Sweeping has come over me.

It's funny to discover you're good at something at an older age. I always portrayed myself as someone who doesn't do much housework. And I doubt I will ever keep a house as clean as say, my sister who runs a professional cleaning business. But the more I use a broom, the more confident I am with it in my hand. I like to feel good about my work whether it's teaching Katie a moral lesson, helping a patron find information on how to get a job, or sweeping my floors. It's all important, and when I thought otherwise it was just an excuse to ignore it because I thought I wasn't good at it.

A lot of my issues with keeping our house clean have to do with my not wanting to appear submissive to my husband. My husband and I are equals. He's better at me in many areas, especially anything about mechanical things or physics or astronomy. I'm better at him at sitting on my ass blogging, playing hopscotch with our kid, and paying thousands of dollars to rescue dying foster dogs.

So for a long time I felt that if I did more housework than Will somehow that made me appear like I was in the stereotypical "housewife" role. I must have subconsciously thought that housespouses didn't have as much power in a relationship as the breadwinner. But now that I'm experiencing more of the role of keeping house, since I went part time at my library job a month ago, I understand just how hard it is. It's physically tiring, cognitively numbing, and exceptionally Sisyphean.

But I like philosophy, so pushing boulders up a hill over and over again, or in my case sweeping pet hair off the floor daily, isn't so bad. It gives me a chance to clear my head for interesting thoughts so I can go sit on my ass and blog about them.