Genderless Lament

Edward, age 71, a retired engineer, came to one of my classes and voiced the "Housewife's Lament," teaching me that the Lament has no gender, but can be sung by both sexes.

I asked "What's the problem?" Edward answered, "I have so much stuff I don't have room for any more. I don't even have room for me!"

I had Edward draw a floor plan of his dwelling and fill it in with major items like furniture. He had a two-car detached garage, filled to the brim. He could neither open the side door nor get into it. He had two large sheds which were in the same condition as the garage. I had Edward "walk" me through his house to eat and sleep and relax. He could "just" get in the door. He could get to the kitchen but that didn't do him much good because the countertops were filled with various items along with the dirty dishes he "hated" to wash. There was "no reward" in repetitive drudgery. So he mostly ate out. He didn't have a table in the kitchen but he did have a bar which couldn't be used because there wasn't "a square inch" of space available on it. The rest of the house was more of the same. He could carefully walk to the bed. He could carefully get to the bathroom. He figured the square footage total of all his buildings. The house, garage, and two sheds totaled 1350 square feet. He figured the area he could walk around in and utilize for himself at 2 feet by eight feet or 16 square feet! Adding for his bed space it was still less than 50 square feet.

He could see for himself he had a problem which is why he came to class. Edward, like all first timers to class, was hoping for a miracle. Most miracles, like most millionaires, are self-made.

Edward's complaint was that he didn't have a place for a guest to sit because the chairs were full of boxes of "things" and he had no more floor space on which to set the boxes when someone "dropped in."

His "problem" was so overwhelming it sapped his strength--physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. He couldn't even use the old dodge, "The hurrier I go the behinder I get" because he couldn't even get up stamina to start anything--let alone finish it.

Where do we begin in helping Edward? Correct! The beginning! And where is the beginning? The kitchen? The dirty dishes? The boxes on the chairs? Those were Edward's most urgent problems, right? Wrong!

Whose responsibility is it that Edward's guests don't have a place to sit? Let's blame it on Edward's parents. They didn't:

A) love him enough/loved him too much
B) teach him to be a good housekeeper
C) provide a maid for him in his old age
D) all of the above
E) none of the above

If you selected E) go to the head of the class. Edward's parents are in no way responsible for the fact that his guests have no place to sit. You can see where this idea is going. Let's get to the bottom line. Edward's guests have no place to sit because that is the way EDWARD chooses it to be. If he doesn't like the way things are HE can change them! YOU can't change them for him, neither can I. We can nag, harp, push, even take it upon ourselves to take the boxes, offer to "store them at our house" but none of these is a solution to Edward's problem.

Why does Edward not choose to have a place for his guests to sit? I listened for awhile to his elaborate excuse system for why he couldn't clear a place for his guests to sit. The answer hit me immediately. Edward doesn't want people to visit him. He is angry at "people." They rejected him--first in divorce (maybe before that) then they retired him. To relieve himself of the guilt he has generated by this anger he "does things" for people (busy-ness) so that he "never has time" to do anything for himself, which is his excuse not to have a place for his guests to sit which is "getting back at people" for rejecting him by rejecting them. Complicated? Not really. Edward's problem boils down to his priorities are out of line. Maybe your problem isn't as extreme as Edward's but it is a problem to you.

Who am I? Who is Edward? Who are you? Let's get our priorities straight. We're #1!