“But you can make it yourself” has almost reached cult status in my family. I can always count on hearing it from my mom if I mention wanting to stop to grab a coffee or a bite to eat – why, I could have just made that at home for (insert cost of said food/beverage). And it would be better, of course.
While I may have acquired the skills to make a lot of things myself, I haven’t quite perfected the routine of maintenance. This has been a sore spot, a failing, a source of shame for a while. Why can’t I just keep myself organized enough to do the most basic things?
To make coffee at home means I have coffee on hand, which means I’ve gone grocery shopping, and which also means I haven’t re-allocated my grocery budget to something more pressing. What could be more pressing than eating? Well, cats eating, for one, because they don’t really do logic and reason when I try to explain to them that kibble is coming even though their bowl is empty now. They will just howl. And my eating can be patched together with canned goods and leftovers, I can stretch it a little longer.
It also requires that home space be kept in workable order, building a foundation of items and order so that cooking and cleaning are tasks, not expeditions. But when did I last do the dishes? Well over a month ago, not counting a small refresher load of mugs and bowls after every single one was dirtied. Dinner tonight was pizza, frozen, because in a glorious burst of forward planning I bought 6 when they were on sale. Later on when I look back, and realize I was thinking ahead, I’m grateful that my past self was planning for my future self in some way, looking for an easier path through the day.
But for the regular things to be done easily, there needs to be more than sporadic effort. The infrastructure requires maintenance.
Evidence of last week’s tiny flash flood of domestic ambition (Don’t ask how long the muffin tins sat unwashed).
I’m sitting here tonight with dye in my hair, a half-hearted refresher to a well-faded purple last updated I can’t remember how long ago. I’m getting my hair cut tomorrow for the first time in six months. This used to be the one thing I maintained, either by shelling out cash or wielding my own colour brush and scissors. But I’ve let it slide, I’ve almost entirely quit the maintenance of my hair, and of personal aesthetics in general.
In a space without maintenance, routines dissolve. Sometimes, in the case of a kitchen, it can be chaotic. In other areas, like caring less about my appearance, it can be freeing. This thing that I thought I had to maintain, or that I thought I wanted to maintain, wasn’t a priority for a while. Eventually I had to reconsider how much of a priority it really was. At what point was I keeping it up for myself, or because it was important, and to what extent did this just become a habit?
Maintenance becomes routine becomes habit, habit becomes unquestioned mechanical repetition. Yes, in some areas I’d like to have a bit more consistency and take out the guesswork. But sometimes that guesswork is necessary, to try out new ways of thinking, of being, of opening up pockets of time and new possibilities.
Perhaps I could do anything myself if I really tried, including perfecting the routine of maintenance. But I’m starting to appreciate its rough spots, the little gaps that keep the days from falling into drone-like repetition. Perhaps it’s not necessary, or obligatory, or the price to pay for keeping up a facade of functional adulthood.
Maintenance, like everything else, is subjective, and taking a moment to observe the places it thrives and the places it’s never even visited – the piles that seem to be growing and toppling, constructing their own geography of abandoned domestic wilderness – might even be more important than trying to impose it everywhere without a second thought. It’s less of an answer and more of a question. What, here, is worth maintaining?
AnaChips 