Unfuck Your Habitat

jinxasaurus:

My main problem is that I’ve never grown up in a really clean place. My family had a “storage room”; it was a spare bedroom that was filled to the brim with stuff.’ You name it, it was in there. It was a mini-episode of Hoarders. Meanwhile, the rest of the house was just clean enough. Lots of corners where we never really looked; like the stairs doubled as shelves… I just wish that was part of their original design.

So I’ve grown up with that as my standard for ‘clean’. And my little brother visited a while ago; the first of my family to actually see where I lived. It was at that point when I realized, this was bad. This was all so very bad. I probably would have noticed sooner if I ever invited people over. But I don’t, so I didn’t. The hard part is that I have a potential to be chemically depressed, and my house/room reflects that. So as I become more depressed (it’s like a cycle), things pile up. And to my luck, I ran across UFYH! I knew I wouldn’t start anything that day. Maybe even that week. But I knew that it would eventually get to me. And it did. Today.

On my way home I thought to myself, “I should top by the store and get some Comet.” (Because I remembered something I saw on UFYH. But I’ll explain in a second.) So I swung by the local grocery and got some Comet and a scrubby-brush-thingy. I went home and ran upstairs to the shower.

Well, it’s important to note that I’m an artist. There aren’t too many days where I come home without paint, emulsion, oils, glue, or something that stains all over me. So my shower was black. And, until I actually cleaned it, I thought it was textured. I also thought it was permanent. Before I found UFYH I tried to clean it before with Scrubbing Bubbles. It didn’t budge. But I was freshly determined at this point. So I said “See this, kitty? When I’m done with this tonight, this will be clean.” I ran the shower then made it snow Comet. I’m sure it had to be an inch thick when I was done. “It look paste-y to you, kitty? I think so.” So I ran off (2 feet) and changed out the kitty litter.

At this point, we didn’t have internet and my confidence was wavering. “Was I supposed to wait minutes or hours? I told you, right? Or are you gonna make me fix the internet and look it up? Ok, fine.” So I ran off to fix the internet. When that was done, I searched the UFYH archives. I knew I saw it recently. And I found the post! I thought that I had given it a good amount of time (2 hours or so by this point), so I grabbed my brush, got some moral support from my cat, and went back upstairs to face The Shower. I had my brush in hand, my cat was peering over the edge of the tub (I made sure to keep him away from the cleaning stuff), and I said “This is it, Jinx. If this doesn’t work, this shit ain’t never comin’ off.” And with that, I started scrubbing. … Well, closed-my-eyes-and-frantically-scrubbed-the-tub is a little more correct. And when I opened my eyes, it was CLEAN! I was elated!

I went along, cleaning a few square inches at a time. Even with the Comet and water, it was still pretty tough. I totally didn’t 20/10 it, though. I may have 5/5’d it because it was very quickly physically exhausting. But after another couple of hours, it was done! For the first time since I’ve lived in this house, the water in the shower drained out clear! That amazingly reflective blue that I never thought I would see in my shower. And there are no pictures before or after because even then, it’s only the tub that looks clean… everything else…

But as a full-time student, I think I’ve taken an amazing step. I’m only ever home a couple hours at night before bed, and I usually don’t have the spoons energy to do much of anything (much less CLEAN!). But now I have this clean spot in my house. This area that I made clean. An area that I ran off to show my roommate as soon as i was done. Everything else may still be a mess, but I did this. And I can do the rest. And I will do the rest. It may take some time, but I can. I did something I thought was physically impossible! Now all the things that just seem daunting seem a lot less difficult.