My (Unhealthy?) Obsession with Making My Bed

I try to make my bed every day. Sometimes it's before I leave for work, other days I don't do it until I get home; but I do it most every day.

This isn't a habit ingrained since childhood. My parents never required that I make my bed every day before school. In fact, they never really required that I clean my room, not that I remember. They, or really my dad, wanted the rooms we all shared to be clean. If we left too much of our stuff, too many dolls or board games or Baby-Sitters Club books cluttering up the den, my dad would angrily gather it all, stack it on the bottom steps of the staircase, and yell for us to take it up to our rooms and put it away. Sometimes, usually after a big fight, we would obey. Other times, our stuff would sit there for days (weeks? does my memory exaggerate?) and then, after a big fight, we would carry it upstairs and drop it in messy piles on the floors of our rooms, a slight hidden rebellion in not putting it away neatly.

But my room was my domain, and if I didn't want to clean it, I didn't. I wasn't a total slob. The mess was usually confined to an unmade bed and piles of clothes, books, and CDs in the two wicker chairs my mother put in my room so that I could sit by my window and read. (I always read in my bed. Since I've moved out on my own, she has continued to try to put chairs in my various bedrooms. "Don't you want a chair in your room? So you can sit and read?" No Mom, I don't. And I've never seen anything in your bedroom chair but a stack of books and clothes, so there.) When it came to the important things, I definitely had organizational (OCD?) tendencies. My bookcase was always neat and, often, alphabetized by author's last name. This was especially important for the times I catalogued my books and ran a small library out of my bedroom. (My sisters' lack of interest in checking out, reading, and returning my books ultimately led to the closing of the library.)

It still amazes me that I grew from the child who hated to clean, to the adult who makes her bed every day, who enjoys a Saturday morning with her boyfriend out of the house so that she can sweep, vacuum, and tidy in peace and with loud pop music playing. How did I become someone who feels more relaxed, who feels happier when her home is clean?

Made it up before work this morning.

I think I have come to see a clean space as a sign of a healthy mind. I'm not saying that it actually means that, just that for me, it has come to represent that.

My dad was the one who encouraged the cleaning at our house. My mother is not a neat person; clutter doesn't bother her like it does my father (and, now, me). Her nightstand is stacked with, I'm not exaggerating, maybe 10-15 books at all times. I have one sister who is similar to me as a child: when it comes to the important things, she is neat, and maybe a little more relaxed about everything else. My other sister is a slob. So when my parents divorced and my dad moved out, the house got messier. And it doesn't take a psychiatrist to figure out that a young teenager might see a lonely mother and start to equate her lack of cleaning with her sadness at the time. Somewhere in there, I started cleaning. I couldn't control dad leaving, I couldn't control mom's confusion or sadness, but by golly, I could clean!

And this has specifically applied to how I feel about the unmade bed. I have a friend who has struggled with depression in the past. When she was feeling down, she would crawl into her bed, under the covers, and sleep. It didn't matter what time of day it was, or what she was supposed to be doing, or how long she stayed there; she would literally crawl into a hole to get away. I would come to visit, see her all wrapped up under the puffy blanket, and know that something was wrong. I would know that nothing I said would get her out of that bed.

This, more than anything, has shaped my obsession. I see an unmade bed as a plan to get back under the covers. I see a long midday nap as depression creeping in. Even now, I take naps on top of my neatly made covers, with one small throw blanket for warmth and an alarm set for no longer than 45 minutes. I always hated my father's fastidious neatness, and yet it seems I've developed my own version of it to feel a sense of control, as if keeping things clean will keep me from some day maybe getting depressed.

I know that I'm not depressed; I don't need carefully timed naps or a clean house to remind me of that. I also know that, however I came to be the way I am, there's nothing wrong with liking a clean house. If organization makes me feel better, then I should keep things organized. But there has to be a balance. There's also nothing wrong with occasionally unmaking the bed for a long, warm, crawl-in-a-hole, afternoon nap.

I'll just re-make the bed when I get up.