The Tidy Switch

It baffled me.

Parents didn't take off their clothes at the end of the day and throw them on the floor. Grandparents didn't leave dirty dishes on the coffee table and just go about their days.

But we did.

On any given day, the living room had piles of discarded clothing lying around, dishes from several lunches sitting out, and activities like books and notebooks and video game controllers strewn about. It would get worse and worse until there were just a few areas of clear floor and Gabe and I would, in unison, realize that it had gotten too far and we'd clean up together.

How did real adults do it? And why weren't we there? We'd been raised to put things away and clean up after ourselves, but now that we lived on our own, we just didn't. We both agreed that we preferred a clean, tidy space. It compounded our stress levels when the house was messy. But somehow...we just didn't change.

This went on for the first two and a half years of marriage, not causing a lot of arguments or problems (we teamed up well and cleaned for company), but hovering over me and in the back of my mind as something I didn't like about ourselves and didn't know how to fix.

Unfortunately, I still don't know how to fix it. But somehow, it's been fixed.

Unlike my general realization that "I'm changing," I do know exactly when the Tidy Switch was flipped. It was March 13, 2019. My sister-in-law Abigail was coming to visit, and we did our customary cleaning for company: straighten up everywhere, clean the kitchen and bathroom, dust, vacuum, etc. Abigail visited for three or four days, and we kept the apartment pretty tidy, as we always would when we had people over. She eventually left.

But I kept things tidy.

Just as an experiment, I decided to see how long I could keep things nice. I stopped throwing my clothes on the floor when I changed into pajamas. If things were dirty, I put them in the hamper; things I'd barely worn I would fold and put away or hang up. After every meal, the first thing I did after standing up from the table was put the dishes in the dishwasher, food back where it belonged. When I was done reading or writing, I put my book or journal in a designated spot. When I came inside, I took my shoes off and lined them up in their place rather than kick them in the right general direction.

I'm a biiiiiiiiig fan of "streaks" (currently have a MyFitnessPal streak of 447 days), so when I realized that I'd been staying tidy for a few days, I kept it up. I didn't want to break that streak.

(Let me also say that in the midst of all this, the old adage "If you do a little every day, it doesn't take so long!" still felt like a BOLD-FACED LIE. Y'all it takes WAY more time to fold and put away clothes than it does to drop them on the floor. Don't believe those lies. It IS gonna take more time, and it's gonna feel like a LOT more time at first. Going from .5 seconds to three minutes is like, what, a 500% increase? Yeah. And it feels like it.)

At that point in the tidiness journey I began to feel fairly frustrated with Gabe because the Switch had not flipped in his mind when it did in mine. If I wanted the apartment to stay neat, I had to address 100% of my personal mess and about 85% of Gabe's as well. It was wearing real thin.

But a few verses in Proverbs 31 (I did a post on that experience) compounded with a bunch of other sources about respecting your husband, leading by example etc., and I ended up deciding that I needed to make one of two changes for my own happiness and holiness:

1) I could stop picking up after Gabe and accept that the apartment was just going to be messier than it "should" be.

2) I could let go of my bitterness and expectations and do it all because it's important to me and I love Gabe.

Well, the first one wasn't an option because 1) streak, and 2) I had decided I really liked a clean space. So Change #2 it was.

I have to imagine that this was what God wanted me to do all along, because I'm not kidding: within a couple of weeks (if not DAYS), the Switch magically (supernaturally?) flipped in Gabe's head too. He started putting his dishes away, and now if he doesn't, I don't mind doing it because it's the exception (and, ya know, letting go of bitterness and expectations). He stopped leaving clothes in the living room, and now I can handle the occasional bedside laundry pile because #Progress.

The apartment still gets messy, but for like a few hours at a time. Before I go to bed, I tidy up. When I go to bed, I put all my clothes away. When I wake up, I'll straighten up anything I've missed. We can always see all of the floor now. We barely have anything to do, clutter-wise, when people come over.

Doing this still takes a lot more time than not doing it. It takes just as much time as did in the beginning, but now I'm used to the amount of time it takes, and I've decided that it's worth it to me. It's all (FINALLY) become a habit to the point where even when I'm exhausted, I'll find myself putting my clothes away before I go to bed, without thinking about it.

I don't know how exactly the Tidy Switch got flipped for me. I guess my best advice is either to be patient and hope that one day it'll flip for you, or to get started and then cling to that "streak" mentality.

Or maybe have Abigail over. Maybe the secret was her all along XD

~Stephanie