Home Messy Home

I'm usually the type who gets everything in order around me, especially in my home, but circumstances have prevented that this last week. Too much has been going on and things have just piled up... like the Halloween decorations...

When we got home from our trip, most of the neighbors had their Christmas decorations up. Granted, half of them get it done professionally, so they don't count. Our house stood out like the black sheep of the neighborhood with the big scarecrows and ghosts and rotting pumpkins on the front porch. But it was still cold and just not important to bring it all in. My ideal was to pack it downstairs and bring up the Christmas decorations at the same time. However, our daughter was and still is moving out of the basement, so that process just wasn't practical.

I found it almost humorous that it got to my husband first, the shame of having spooks in our yard when the neighbors had their PEACE, HOPE, JOY, and LOVE signs up. No kidding, we have neighbors who have these huge signs they put on their decks every year as if they signed an agreement with each other, even when the owners of the houses change. It is lovely. We can see them from our upstairs window and anyone driving the busy street adjoining our neighborhood can enjoy them...

Anyway, Hubby went outside in the cold and collected the obvious, hanging Halloween decorations. I waited until it got warm again to go out and collect the rest. But I didn't pack them away. Instead, they are piled up in the house. Now we have that pile along with a few turkeys, pumpkins, and fall leaves lurking in the dining room, family room, and kitchen, as well as a bare Christmas tree that Hubby managed to get up between football games on Sunday. I went shopping with our daughter for her new place and got new stockings for the mantel, for Hubby and me. I've decided not to put the kids' stockings up since they're grown and gone.

Needless to say, our house is full of mixed messages with a few Christmas decorations up, a pointsetta that Hubby bought me, and piles of Halloween decorations with other reminders of the fall and Thanksgiving season all over the house. But the outside, at least, looks like Christmas with white, pristine snow still gleaming in the sun and moonlight in our front yard. It reminds me of all the times I made sure that everything looked great on the outside to the rest of the world when inside our house was rotten and messy. Oh, not to anyone who per chance would get inside, because I made sure that looked good, too.

I'm talking about the disease of alcoholism and its effects... you know, the secrets, the screaming, the door slamming, the deafening silence, the crying, the scared children, the absent father... As I look around my house right now, I'm thinking how this represents what it used to be like - the facade on the outside with the mess on the inside. But it isn't what it is really like spiritually. My home may look chaotic right now, but it doesn't feel chaotic. It is not out of control, it is just temporary circumstances keeping me from cleaning it up. That's all.

And the big difference is that I wouldn't be embarrassed if anyone came calling today. I wouldn't apologize for the mess. I'd let them in, offer them a cup of tea, and rummage through the pantry for some store-bought cookies. It would be just fine and they would feel at home. I'm learning to feel at home in whatever my circumstances are, just like I learned to be content whether the alcoholic was drinking or not. I can be at peace inside when all around me is the opposite. It is okay and it is just for today.

Thank you, Higher Power, for my home, my Hubby, my program, my children, my dog, my sponsor, my service sponsor, my grandma, my mother-in-law, my sponsees, my Al-Anon and AA friends, my meetings, my fireplace, the warm winter sun, my TiVO, my chiropractor, my massage therapist, and so much more. I am truly a grateful member of the worldwide fellowship of Al-Anon. I'd rather have a messy home with a serene spirit than a perfectly organized home covering up chaos any time of the year. And that's the truth :-)