18 Minutes
My grandmother told me today that she read, some years ago, that it took eighteen minutes to clean up the kitchen. "After that," she said, "I would think, eighteen minutes? I can do that. And it didn't seem so bad."
I've been working on managing my mental illness and my medication, and while I stay occupied with my writing projects I haven't held a job outside the house in some time. So while my husband works, I've been taking care of our apartment. And it hasn't been easy. I still don't have one of my medications, so I've been struggling to get the work done, but that's not really what's been bothering me. It's more that I've been struggling philosophically with these domestic duties, a phrase that still feels straight out of the sixties for me. I don't mind, on a logical basis, doing them: I am, after all, the person at home for the day, so it makes sense for me to take care of them.
But as someone who was raised by a feminist mother, it feels weird to suddenly be in a position where I, the wife, do all the housework. It feels like a personal failing on my part, like I should be anywhere but in the kitchen. I'm now a stereotype: a housewife. And I don't really know how to deal with that.
Women have been struggling to balance work and home for generations. I'm certainly not the first to confront this problem. Part of me feels like I'm not valuing my own work, my writing. Part of me feels like I'm a bad feminist for being a stay-at-home spouse. And I wonder what life will be like when I get my medication sorted out and actually do pick up a job outside the house. Will I still be in charge of the kitchen-cleaning and house-tidying then? Will my husband and I split the duties, or would that be selfish of me to ask for help?
These are questions. I don't really have the answers.
I'm going to finish writing this paragraph and head off to do the dishes.
