Messy By Angela Rieck

I am a bit of a clean freak. I keep my home relatively pristine.

Nevertheless, I recognize that the best things in life are messy. Families are messy. Relationships are messy. Friends are messy. Children are messy. Dogs are messy. Gardens are messy. Boats are messy. Basically, everything that matters is usually messy

I suspect that part of my cleanliness is a way of keeping some order in the messiness in my life. Cleanliness is something that I can control. 

But a messy life a happy life. 

I host a Gingerbread House party every year after Thanksgiving. With my large family, anywhere from 15 to 20 children and adults arrive to decorate Christmas gingerbread houses, all at once. It is mayhem. Some of the decorators are children and when they are done, there is candy everywhere. Fortunately, my daughter and her husband have assumed the bulk of the cleaning duties.

Even after the cleaning, the house is messy. For weeks, I find candy in all kinds of places, wiping off icing in areas that I didn’t know children could reach. And I love it. I enjoy watching the kids eat the candies that they put on the gingerbread houses. I love their inspired creations. One time, one of my grand nephews selected a Gingerbread house that had been damaged. It had a hole in the roof, so he made the hole bigger and filled it with candy so that he could use the gingerbread house as a candy jar. 

The adults (my nieces and nephews) are just as amusing, sometimes competitive, but the results are festive and beautiful. At the end, we award prizes to the children. And it just so happens that all the children end up winning some kind of prize. Some examples of prizes are houses with the most green candies, or the house with the most candy (you get the picture). It is a lot of fun. And it is as messy as messy gets.

Friend relationships can be messy, and it takes persistence to maintain them. But they wouldn’t be as strong if they weren’t messy. Spousal relationships are particularly messy and just like friendships it takes persistence to get through the down-periods and to enjoy the good periods without resentment from the down times. My dogs are messy, tracking in all kinds of dirt. My garden is messy, thanks the weeds and the bunnies.

And family, that can be the messiest of all. But family, when you accept the messiness, are there for you for life. 

So, a messy life is a complicated life. But I know for those of us who are blessed with children, grandchildren, spouses, friends, dogs, gardens and all manner of hobbies, we would not trade that messiness for anything in the world.

Angela Rieck, a Caroline County native, received her PhD in Mathematical Psychology from the University of Maryland and worked as a scientist at Bell Labs, and other high-tech companies in New Jersey before retiring as a corporate executive. Angela and her dogs divide their time between St Michaels and Key West Florida. Her daughter lives and works in New York City.