There is an important reason
I must travel. The reason is not because of work.
I love to see new places. I
love strolling through city neighborhoods, sauntering into small storefronts,
observing the people around me. I like to spend time meandering through
museums. I enjoy viewing different landscapes.
I am not particularly fond
of air travel nowadays, but consider it a necessary evil, the means of reaching
far flung places around the globe.
There is another motivation for
leaving home regularly.
I
have to clean the house.
I am not a very good
housekeeper. In fact I am a terrible one. And a reluctant one. I have an innate
ability to put off…and off...and off as long as possible what should be regular
cleaning tasks.
So everything piles up and
one day I wake up, walk into the kitchen and family room and say to myself,
“D**n, I have to go on a trip. The house is a disaster.”
If nothing is on the
calendar, I schedule an outing.
And then I clean.
Because worse than cleaning
is coming home to a messy house.
So I straighten up, vacuum,
make sure the kitchen counters are visible, and depart.
And when I return I can walk
into my house and smile. The house is not too bad. It is fairly neat and clean.
All the traveling gets expensive.
Especially when we have company, and particularly when the grandkids descend.
The house gets messier and more disheveled than ever.
When I begin cleaning,
another unusual event happens.
Hub disappears.
I am not a nice person when doing
housework. He learned a long time ago to give me plenty of space when on a
cleaning binge.
On the other hand I am in a
good mood when done.
As I get older and travel
becomes more of a burden than a blessing, there are alternatives to consider.
We can move and start over.
We have done that before. It
works – for a while.
Someone else can clean my
house. That would mean paying someone – because no one is going to touch my
house for free – but it actually may be cheaper than traveling.
I can ignore the mess.
That only works temporarily.
We can eat out. Minimizes
kitchen mess and clutter.
Actually, we do that a lot
now anyway.
I can stop wearing glasses
in the house. Then I will not see all the dust and mounds of stuff accumulating
around me.
But I would probably hurt
myself stumbling around.
I could try to be neater all
the time.
Yeah, right. Who am I kidding?
Personally I like the idea
of moving. We keep downsizing, so there is less stuff to transport each time.
One day we will find
ourselves in a tiny studio apartment with no furniture, no kitchen, and using
the bathroom down the hall.
At least there will be
nothing to clean.