The Truth about Scrubbing Showers

Yesterday, I decided I had to suck it up & peel myself away from the computer to complete a few domestic duties. So I cleaned the shower.

Blech.

I despise cleaning the shower.

Our apartment doesn’t have just a normal tub shower that are simple to clean–soap, scrub, bam, you’re done. Oh no.

Tile.

4×4 inch tile covering the entire thing, from floor to ceiling. Hours of scrubbing every little crack between them. And no matter how much you scrub, there will always be spots that won’t look clean.

And there’s always grime on the ceiling. Because how are you going to clean the ceiling?

The cleaner runs down the sponge, down your arm, into your armpit. And it drips dangerously close to your eyes, and you think, Gee, I’m glad I wore my glasses for this job instead of my contacts.

And you’re too short to really scrub hard. And of course you don’t have a step stool or anything to help you out, because your kid is only 2 months old, so why would you have a step stool.

And you can’t help thinking, I wish I were writing. It’s like one of those bumper stickers: I’d rather be writing instead of I’d rather be golfing or fishing.

And so you stare at those spots that just won’t come clean, wondering how long you’d have to scrub to make them go away. And you sigh because you know that it’s only going to get dirty again. And you’ll have to clean it again.

And you wonder, Is writing like that? You write, and then you revise and scrub away the icky parts, and then revise some more, and revise some more. And will there ever be an end to revising, when you think, This is perfect.

But there’s no way to know, because you’re not there yet.

But in the end, you decide, No, writing is not like scrubbing a shower over and over again.

Because writing is exciting. And revising is exciting. And cleaning a shower is not.

And that’s the truth of it.

—***—

And because you dear people just read through that whole rant & you’re thinking, I’m trying to win a contest here! Give me something to work with! Here’s an idea for your comment: Make some connection between a normal, boring, everyday thing & writing or reading. It doesn’t have to be as long as mine. 😉