~by Haley Lynn Gray~
People have a misconception about me: that my house is perfect, my garden is immaculate, and I’m Wonder Woman on every level.
Allow me to correct the record.
Exhibit A: the laundry
I am permanently banned from doing the laundry. I secured this ban in the first couple of months of marriage, more than three decades ago, by turning all of my husband’s clothes pink with one enthusiastic red sweater.
I have never appealed the ruling. I don’t intend to.
Exhibit B: everything else
I’m a genuinely good cook — when I want to be, which is a few times a year. The rest of the time I forget the kitchen exists.
Cleaning the house is not among my competencies. At this moment there are two cats and a rabbit conducting manoeuvres in the background, and a pile of shopping I dropped inside the door with every intention of dealing with it later.
After my father died I inherited his two cats, who turn out to be considerably younger and more nocturnal than my own. They take turns sprinting across the bedroom at night, which is how I came to know exactly what 22 pounds of cat feels like landing on a sleeping person’s midsection.
The dichotomy
Here’s the working reality for anyone running a business from a house with children in it.
On one side, you’re being professional for clients, employees and customers. On the other, there is constant chaos in the background — and the two are separated by a door, a mute button and a certain amount of nerve.
It isn’t a balance so much as a rapid alternation. You close a call and deal with the rabbit.
Why I’m telling you
Because the polished version does damage.
Women in business spend an extraordinary amount of energy comparing their own chaos to everyone else’s edited highlights, and concluding they’re uniquely disorganised. They’re not. They’re seeing the front of house and comparing it with their own back of house.
Knowing what you’re genuinely good at — and what you’re frankly hopeless at — is more useful than aspiring to a version of competence that nobody actually has.
What I’ve learned from the chaos
Decide which standards matter. Mine: the people are fed, the work is excellent, the animals are alive. Beyond that, quite a lot is negotiable.
Hand over what you’re bad at. Permanently, if possible. See: laundry.
Don’t pretend. Presenting perfect competence makes you unreachable, and makes everyone else feel worse for no benefit to you.
And laugh where you can. Some weeks the entire strategy is to find it funny and keep moving.
Queen of Chaos, at your service. The crown is somewhere under the toy pile.
