I Believe in the Power of Cleaning

Mikayla

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I believe in creating a spotless kitchen. Cleaning up the clutter can be therapeutic. It gives me time to sift through my thoughts and organize my life. Cleaning gives my mind a time to wander. It is a stress free time where I can do things my own way without the scrutiny of others. Cleaning allows me to pour any negative energy into something positive, and when I am done I have the feeling of extreme accomplishment.

If I’m mad, cleaning gives me a place to channel my anger and create something positive. I can ferociously scrub the baked on food off the stove, or viscously scrape the crusty left overs off the dishes. If I’m sad, I clean everything in a slower manner. I clean the dishes slowly until they are squeaky clean and leisurely wipe the counters until every surface is spotless.

I woke up one morning and walked into the kitchen only to find the counter was nowhere to be found. There were dirty dishes overflowing from the sink, dirty glasses, spoons used for stirring tea, pans with the previous nights’ dinner, dish rags, honey, used napkins, half eaten bananas…you name it, it was on the counter. The kitchen was a mess. Not only was there nowhere to put a bowl to pour some cereal, there were no bowls in the cabinet. Surprise, surprise, they were all dirty.

Naturally, I was mad this day. All I wanted to do was enjoy a tasty bowl of cereal, but no, I had to clean whole kitchen just to get a bowl and a place to pour the cereal. I threw the bananas in the compost. I scrubbed all the dishes encrusted with dried up dinner remnants until my hands were raw. I sprayed the counters with cleaner and buffed them until they were sterile enough to eat off of.

As I was cleaning I thought to myself, “how did I come to love cleaning?” Then I thought back to the days when I was about five and would wake up and go downstairs into the kitchen and start cleaning. I would scrub the stove, the refrigerator, and the counters, sweep the floor, and wipe down the table. I remember I always spent extra time on the stove coils trying to make sure they were perfect. My mind was wrapped up in this memory and before I knew it, the kitchen was spotless.

I believe in the power of cleaning. I clean when I’m mad. I clean when I’m sad. I clean when I’m confused. And every time it makes me feel better and brings me to the conclusions I have been looking for.