Stay-at-Home

It’s taken me a long time to admit something to myself: that I am, at least for the time-being, a stay-at-home.  I’ve been one before, mind you, but not always in such a complete way.  And I’ve also recently decided that’s okay. Instead of agonizing about how keeping the house from descending into an abysmal mess of dirty dishes, cat hair drifts, and piles of junk mail is only keeping me from what I should be doing (reading, writing, academic-ing), I’ve decided that I need to embrace the diversity of tasks to which I am called in the course of an ordinary day.  Take yesterday for example.  Here’s what I did, in roughly chronological order:

Started reading a colleague’s chapter draft

Wrote bills

Updated my Old Bike Blog

Worked on my current bike project

Investigated the clogged pipes under the kitchen sink

Made lunch and checked the mail

Continued reading colleague’s chapter draft

Made dinner

Took the cat for a walk

Did the dishes

This was actually a less productive work day than usual, due primarily to the #$%&*! kitchen sink, which my equally #$%&*! landlord can’t fix because he’s in #$%&*! Michigan for two weeks and didn’t bother to tell any of us until I called yesterday.  Incidentally, washing the dishes took about twice as long as a result of the clogged sink, I’ll spare you the details.

Anyway, the point is that I’m pretty lucky to have the time and space to do all of these things as they need to get done, and instead of looking at my work as a nine-to-five endeavor, intruded upon by the niggling little everyday tasks of life, I need to consider my time more holistically.  It’s all my time, and it’s choosing to make productive use of it, whether by working or house-working, that’s important.  Otherwise, I come to resent the life tasks that “take away” from my work time, and in the process, end up resenting my life at the expense of my work.  And that’s just not okay with me.