Learning about the enneagram has been a huge factor in personal growth for me as an individual over the past year. After facing intense heartache and fearing I wouldn’t survive, being introduced to the language of experiencing life as a four felt a bit like a lifeline. I now had a way to explain myself to others, understand why certain interactions were so comforting while others left me feeling drained, and possessed a framework to help me work towards integration. It’s all still a process, even as the deep heartache wanes. But on days like today, I laugh with relief as even the mundane parts of myself start to click into place.
I like a clean home. I’m almost anal about it. I cannot sit down to engage in rest or creativity until the dog hair is swept, the counters are wiped down, and the pillows are fluffed. I’m realizing, though, that these tasks are more about establishing the aesthetics of my atmosphere than a desire for cleanliness. Confession: all week, I sweep mounds of dog hair behind a door… until you can see it peeking out from the edge… and only then will I vacuum it up (maybe). I invested more energy into color-coding my DVD collection that I rarely see or touch. But knowing that there is a beautiful ombre rainbow work-of-art nestled under the built-in bench in my living room is all a part of establishing the aesthetic mosaic I need to feel restful.
If you’re not a four, my confessions of hair behind the door may disgust you a bit, but I bet you can wrap your mind around it. The whole “clean the house so it feels good” bit isn’t where my self-awareness hang up was, though. Here’s the problem I’ve always wrestled with but never understood until today: the mental energy it takes for me to motivate myself to clean, which establishes the environment for rest… well… it’s so damn tiring!
On any given Friday, there are four to ten half-consumed mugs of coffee on the floorboard of my car that have slowly accumulated and grown acquainted throughout the week. I tell myself to take the one mug in on Monday, knowing how the week will continue. But there is some hang up in my brain that makes it feel impossible to reach down, grab the mug, hoist it up off the floor, balance it with all of the bags I’m trying to carry, and then lug it all the way up the stairs. If by some grace of God I manage to muster this heroic strength, then I simply cannot be expected to get the mug all the way to the dishwasher. I’ll leave it on the edge of the counter right inside of the door, take a nap, and come back to it later. Now imagine the mental hurdles I must overcome when the pile accumulates to ten mugs and a couple of Tupperware containers.
Admittedly, this has made me feel like the lamest excuse for an adult. Sometimes my high school students have to convince me to clean out the sink in my office, and I’m borderline throwing a tantrum before I relent. As I scrub and realize the items in the sink were starting to collect mold is when I start to wonder what is wrong with me.
But this morning, I belly-laughed while watching a video from Abby Wambach’s Instagram history. She interviewed her wife, Glennon Doyle, about some everyday habits that need some attention in their home: misplacing toothpaste, misusing razors, and melting discarded gum in hot cars. I laughed until my cheeks ached because I felt so understood, and the thought of someone caring enough to help bring these things to attention and put in the painstaking work to endure the process of growth in these simple areas made my heart swell with joy. I think back to the endless arguments my parents and I would have when I was a child. “Why can’t you ever remember to hang up your shower towel? What happens in your mind that makes you take it off your body, let it drop to the floor, and forget about it!?” I could only stare blankly… I was just as clueless as they were.
The Wambach/Doyle family meeting held a different tone, though, and at one point, Glennon says the thing that unlocked years of speechlessness from me in similar family meetings, “I’m always thinking of really important things, so I can’t think about these things… these everyday, boring things. I am thinking important thoughts . . . My mind is full and my hands are full.” I exploded in laughter that communicated, “YES! I am not alone! I understand you, and you would understand me!” My laughter was the embodiment of my 13-year-old self shooting both fists into the air in victory while shouting, “I knew there was a reason I couldn’t remember to put my towel on a hook!”
Ah, but now I’m an adult homeowner who understands that your wet towel actually can rot the floor over time. And sometimes you want to have passengers in your car, and they need places to put their feet. And color-coding a beautiful to-do list that requires you to take breaks while making it because it is so detailed… well, that’s just not an efficient system for the weekly clean-up.
So, Fellow Fours, what can we do about this? What does integration in this area look like? For me, it looked like spending money on an app (something I have refused to do all other days of my life). Tody is a task manager app, specifically for cleaning and home-maintenance. It eliminates my need for to-do list artwork because it keeps an ongoing list of adulting tasks. The color-coded bar charts help me know when things are in danger territory (I’m 129 days overdue with pantry organization… and that red bar is starting to convince me to not go another 129 days. I don’t like it. It looks threatening.). They also help me feel like I’m playing The Sims, which is way more appealing than being a real life human with the same boring chores every week. Tody also knows all of the other tasks that I will undoubtedly forget are a part of life (watering plants and changing air filters and checking the pressure on my tires… oh, and fans! We are supposed to clean fans?!). The best part, though, is the gratification of the successful alert noise when I click “Just Did It!” on a task, and the red transforms to green.
This all may seem silly to some, but my head is just too filled with important ideas to care. I’m committed to growing! The app has helped me keep my feet under me in the cleaning/home-owner world–especially during a year of dark depression. When my brain and heart feel filled to capacity, I can really convince myself that my hands must be filled too–and I can get frozen with real-life productivity needs. Cooking meals, making my bed, and exercising can seem impossible. Thankfully, they are not, and the Tody app has helped me to retrain my brain to know that even when it’s filled with great and painful thoughts, my hands can still transport a few mugs.
this wordy world 