Deep Clean

(Don't Google "What's in dust.")

I deep-cleaned my apartment yesterday. As I moved each piece of furniture from its stagnancy, dormant dust kicked up, filling my sad little dustpan to the brim. As I carefully walked the towering pile of gray matter to my trash bin, I tripped - spilling all of it on top of my freshly vacuumed area rug. At one point I even moved my fridge, comically forgetting that I had an open container of iced coffee inside. The deeper I cleaned, the filthier my apartment became. 

I surface-cleaned my life for a long time. I ignored patterns that didn’t serve me like the dust bunnies under my bed, grew accustomed to trauma hanging around like that mystery stain on the kitchen wall, and settled for good enough like slightly smudged baseboards. Everything seemed neat and tidy if I didn’t look too closely.

Therapy helped me begin the deep clean of my life and at first, like my apartment, it got messy. Uncomfortably chaotic. I didn’t want to kick up the grime I’d swept under the rug my whole life, but I had suddenly become allergic to not addressing it. I was making myself sick with negative self-talk so I began to refuse access to those who perpetuated it. I took a hard look at the parts of me that felt shame and polished them until they were parts I was proud of. I left a trail of hurt and mistakes in my wake that I had to forgive myself for, mopping up my past wrongs like a leaky garbage bag.

Then, as if out of nowhere, my life seemed to be clean. Then, as if out of nowhere, she appeared. Someone like me, who had just deep cleaned her own life, smelling faintly of bleach and self-ownership, a smile on her face and dust in her hair. It’s been easy to love her because I love myself so much. It’s been easy for her to love me because she loves herself.

Occasionally, dormant dust from our past arrives like the kind you forget that gathers in the back of the closet, and we help each other address it. Label it. Understand it. Knowing that to be human is to be messy. Recently, a cockroach appeared. But it was dead, and absolutely not a threat.