His and Hers
When you’ve got a large family, you spend an absurd amount of time cleaning things. (I may have mentioned that before.) Laundry and dishes pile up the moment you turn your back, and clutter happens in the blink of an eye. I put so much work into the house at large, that my bedroom is the one to suffer. My clean clothes languish in the laundry basket, my dirty laundry piles higher and higher until my 5 year old comments on it, and my bathroom… sigh… my bathroom. I wouldn’t say that there are chores that I actually like, but if I had to rank them, cleaning the bathroom would be at the bottom, next to picking up dog poop. It’s been a while since I’ve done either. I’d like to blame my near back to back bouts of strep throat, but that would be disingenuous.
Consequently, standing in the bathroom looking at the state of my mirror, my mind is boggled by my husband’s side. His mirror is covered in water spots. It looks like he just stands in front of his sink flicking water at the mirror like he’s working on a Jackson Pollock inspired art piece. God bless double vanities, because it drives me crazy. It has something to do with the way he styles his hair, the same technique that he’s been using our entire marriage, probably since he was old enough to care to style his hair. These water spots aren’t new to me. Over a decade of marriage later, I still see them, and they still irk me.
Thank heavens we don’t have to share a bathroom with my kids, because they leave toothpaste clumped all over the sink, plus their own water spots on the mirror from brushing their teeth. Their towels get tossed on the floor, and their field goal percentage for getting their clothes successfully in the dirty hamper is about .300. Even our daughter makes a big mess, she sheds a whole lot of hair during her bath, leaving tiny ringlet curls coating the sides of the tub when she’s finished, and the fiberglass is slick from her hair product. These people I live with are messy, and goodness how I hate cleaning bathrooms.
I was looking at my husband’s half of the mirror and shaking my head while I washed my hands. I looked at his side and then mine, an invisible line bisecting the two, one (mostly) clear and one side flecked to the point of blurriness. Then I glanced down at my sink and noticed that curving around the back of the faucet is a water stain. It’s something about the way I wash my hands, an odd way that I position them under the spout that pushes the water around the top of the sink, like the splash back of washing a spoon. Instead of letting the water flow freely down the drain, the water splashes up and out, curving around the faucet and then lingering, making a gross spot at the back of my sink that really needs to be cleaned. My husband’s sink does not have this stain. It’s my mess, unique to me.
Most of us make messes without even realizing it, yet we could easily point out the water spots on someone else’s sink. Maybe this is how Jesus would tell the parable of the log in your eye to my 21st century self.* We all have those things that we do imperfectly that leave messes around us, both literally and figuratively. We all are in need of bettering ourselves, handling our own messy sinks before tackling someone else’s. When you spend all your time cleaning up other people’s messes, you just end up resentful and frustrated with the way they wash their hair and brush their teeth. But when you start by cleaning up your own mess, you have empathy for others, and with that comes more patience. And what mom out there isn’t looking for a little more patience in her life? (If you know her, introduce her to me, I have questions.)
P.S. you’re welcome for not posting any pictures of my bathroom with this blog.
*Matthew 7:1-5 is where you can find that parable
