My first act after we got home from moving Aden in to her apartment was to vacuum the entire house. I moved on to de-cluttering, shuffling random leftover papers and possessions to my college students' rooms and then shutting their doors. The cats ran from my wild broom and my duster; I even made it out to clean the porch, where I grew frustrated about squirrels making a mess of my birdfeeders. I threatened them them with decapitation but they merely flipped me off with their golden tails and ran away with full cheeks.
Our backyard wildlife wasted no time in breaking through my illusion of control, but for a few minutes my orderly and antiseptic home soothed the pangs of longing for my kids. By removing the swim gear, leftover thank you notes, pay stubs and masks they left behind I hoped to soothe my sorrow, and the strange thing is that it worked, briefly. Satisfying the itch for control temporarily numbs me to emotional aftereffects of college departures.
The control is always an illusion, subject to wreckage by squirrels, humans or other events. My remaining at-home child still stashes Doritos and energy drinks in his nightstand, and leaves messes wherever he lands. My Facebook account was hacked over the weekend at the same time a suspicious credit card charge made, leaving Rob to hack the hacker and get my account back, as well as call in for a new card number - the fifth time this year. Chaos always emerges from control, threatening to break the dam that holds more destructive emotions in check.
In the rare instances when I'm in control. when the floors and counters are bare, beds are made and the litter box clean, the world is my oyster. I'm sure that life will punish me for that last sentence with an upset afternoon, perhaps raccoons in the attic or a flat tire on my bike, but I'll just have to scrub the baseboards, purge the closets, and convince myself that I planned it this way.
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