My Journal #2

May 10 noisy or messy?

Prompt: What's tougher: living with someone messy or someone noisy?


From my point of view it would be messy. You wonder why I picked that? I am not the perfect housekeeper. I'm creative. Doesn't that sound like a good excuse?  I married a perfectionist. I didn't know it at the time but I found out very quickly there was as standard I was supposed to meet.  I will not go into the horrors I went through the first 17 -19 years of my marriage. Some people said I should have walked away.  Looking back I'm glad I didn't.
I'm still not the best housekeeper. I may not dust for weeks, or vacccum as often as I should. ( how often is that supposed to be?) I wish things bothered me. They don't, but when they do I clear things off and they are fine to me. Not so to the perfectionist.

I think the hardest question for me was from my uber-perfectionst aunt. She sided with my husband and said, "Why should I have to lower my standards to yours when you can't or won't raise them to mine?"  I withered. I had no answer but it hurt more than I could ever have imagined.
There is no HAPPY medium. Someone has to give and it usually is the person who is the perfectionist. The other person can NEVER live up to their expectations because they are always higher than what ever it was.  If you've ever seen the movie  Sleeping with the Enemy, that was my worst nightmare. I cannot watch the beginning of that movie.

Just today, when life has been so good, I dusted and used the lemon oil. Perfectionist stood talking to me about something that was on his mind. (his trip he'd just returned from) and out shear habit he ran his finger over the headboard after I'd just dusted it. Now He said nothing as he was already into his story. But me? I had to fight the defense shield that flew up in front of me. I said nothing about the action and it went on forgotten, until now. That defense from all those years cannot be removed. Like a hand the moves near you in an argument and your head reacts by turning away. Its been more years since I had that happen, but in a heated argument if there is a sudden action, I react.

I got way off the subject and probably told more than I needed to. For the record I'd rather live with a noisy person than a messy one. I can take my own mess, but not someone elses. My sister is much worse than even I could ever stand. I love her dearly but there are times I can't go into her house because of the smell of dogs or animals or who knows what.