Love Cleaning? So not the right word.

A reader who knows me in the outside world sent me an email in which she chided me about some of the postings this month. I believe her point can be summarized as "Do you really love cleaning that much?" I went back to look at the pre-Pesach postings and nowhere can I find that I said I love cleaning. I do love how a house looks and smells when it has been thoroughly cleaned. But love the process? To me that is akin to asking a woman who has had children if she loves the process of delivery. We all love the end result--having that child--but loving the labor pains?! It's not love which is the word that applies but it is the word acceptance. I accept that if a house is going to be cleaned there is going to be some work involved. I accept that some jobs are time consuming and some are highly labor intensive. I don't believe that anyone would argue that changing a baby's dirty diaper is something to look forward to with joy--no one loves doing that chore. But we accept that the diaper must be changed and we do it. Know anyone who loves being around a little one with a smelly diaper on board? Well I don't like being around a smelly garbage can either. I could sit around and complain that it's not fair that all that cleaning will have to be done. I could sit and kvetch that I'm not going to do it and I just don't care who says it has to be done. Or I could stop wasting time trying to avoid the inevitable and just do the things that need doing. You don't want to do every "spring cleaning" chore every year? Your choice. You don't want to push all that cleaning to coincide with the arrival of Pesach. Your choice. You don't want to be made to feel badly about not doing what others are doing? Your choice to stop feeling badly. Just keep in mind that you can only put off the inevitable for so long before it becomes a must-do-now event. Don't want to do it for Pesach? Fine. But it's going to have to be done at some point. Call it judgemental if you want to, but I would not be comfortable being in someone's house where cleaning consists of a bare swipe and a "maybe later" on a constant basis. I know of someone who complains that paint companies are cheating their customers because those paints become dingy in only a couple of years. Sigh, it's not the paint. Let the dust and dirt pile up in those "optional" areas and dingy is the result. You don't want to do that sometimes necessary cleaning right before Pesach? Not my business but yours. But I would caution that accepting that the cleaning has to be done on a regular schedule is something we all--males and females--need to do. Not love---acceptance.