Embarrassment thy name is foreign to me!

Any doubts that I had about having an ounce of mortification have today been put to rest and I am in a position to declare officially, confidently that I am beyond it!

Of course it hasn’t happened overnight and of course I ain’t proud of it. But you see the thing is I am kind of feeling a little liberated, buoyant and better-off now that the burden of keeping up with social etiquettes has been lifted off my shoulders, could this condition be diagnosed as “shameless”? Well, I am not going to say it, you decide.

And who do you think is responsible for lifting the burden of my shoulders? My two little devils, who else? Before I sing their praises let me tell you that in my world there are two kinds of extreme humiliations possible. Being caught in the middle of a messy home or a public outburst. Having suffered both the scenarios ample number of times, immunity came faster than medicine.

Like I said before, this hasn’t happened in a day just like Rome as we all know wasn’t built in a day. If I had to retrace my steps and go back to where it all started the chronology of events would be somewhat like this.

“The house”

Charity begins at home and so does disgrace. To give myself a little bit of credit, I had things pretty much in control till well after the arrival of Baby no. 1. Like my mother and her sisters who inherited “the” trait from their mother, I too fell into the same gene pool category. We used to be clean freaks, all us ladies in the family and by “used to be” I mean the rest of them still are. To give you a few examples, clothes worn outside house even for less than an hour went straight into the laundry basket, leftovers had only one destination – garbage can, the kitchen sink had to be clean even if was 2 a.m. by the time the guests left and bedtime routine started with laying a fresh bed sheet over the one that had been in use all day. I could go on and on with such examples but  figured it would be a waste of time since the above sufficiently explained the point to be made.

With the arrival of our first child, it became a little tough to live up to the high standards set by my own self but I was younger and not really current with the ways of other worlds.  So I worked around the house when the baby slept and then marveled at the mess she managed to create in about quarter of the time it took for me to clean up.  Still, the zeal to maintain appearances was very much alive and I took pride that if anybody showed up unannounced, they would find a clean carpet, a mess free kitchen and a well fed baby, at almost any time of the day! As the baby grew into a toddler, the “unannounced “changed to “a 10 minute notice” and then to “sufficient notice”.

And here I must say that nobody can really blame me for not trying. When the second baby came along and started crawling a couple of months later, I made a valiant effort to pass the quality control test. I tried to keep the toys in their bins, food off the carpet and pillows on the bed. I tried to fold laundry on time, load the dishwasher after meals and retain books on the shelves. I tried to be a Super Mom. Most of it I tried to do for the benefit of that “unannounced” visitor. But, there is only so much that a mind and body can take.  It took many wasted hours to realize that if I was going to utilize every minute of my free time in setting things right around the house, the only thing that wouldn’t be right after a while would be my brain.

So these days I am no longer a captive of my own code of belief. I cash in on any free time that I get and do things that are high on my list of priorities like reading a book, calling up a friend, taking a walk, writing mommy posts or watching a movie; the dishes in the sink can wait!

p.s. “The Airplane” follows….