245 : It's My Mess

I'm typically a very clean person.  I like my home in order.  I like things put away.  Okay, I'm not always the best with laundry- I will wash and fold my clothes but I hate putting laundry away.  So often, the clothes sit in stacks on my dresser for almost a week.  That aside though, I like things clean.  When I go to bed at night, the kitchen is clean.  I do this because I hate waking up to a mess.  Whenever I make a meal, I eat it and then I clean up the kitchen.  I'm also very good at cleaning while I'm cooking or baking so there is less to do at the end.  The other night though, I made myself dinner and then I did the craziest thing.  I just left the dishes in the sink.  The dishwasher was full and clean but I didn't feel like unloading it at the moment.  So I just left them there.  Now granted, I still rinsed them out and had them neatly stacked in the sink, but I left them just the same.  I woke up the next morning and saw the dishes sitting there and felt completely liberated.  My kids were gone.  The house was mine and it was MY mess.  Not his.  Mine.  Now my Ex had been pretty good about cleaning up for us or cleaning up after himself, but he wasn't perfect (who was?).  On occasion he'd leave his dirty dishes in the sink.  It was annoying.  I'd wake up to a clean kitchen and then spot his dishes with dried food crusted to them just sitting in the sink.  Why he couldn't just go that one extra step and put them in the dishwasher was beyond me.  It was totally different though to have my own mess.  I knew I'd get around to unloading the dishwasher at some point and putting my dirty dishes away. But it wouldn't be today.  In fact, I'd let them sit there for a good 24 hours.  I could do this.  It wouldn't become a habit by any means, but there was something that just felt right about it.  Even the tiniest of shifts, made me feel like I was taking my life back.  Messy or not, I loved it.