Let’s Stop Apologizing for Our Houses

I went to visit a friend last week, and the first thing she said when I knocked on her door was “please excuse my mess of a house, I haven’t had time to…”

The rest of her apology was lost on me, because I knew what she was going to say. So I just waved her away with a “please, you should see my house today,” and we went inside for a cozy chat and a cup of tea.

I still don’t know what she was apologizing for, because her house didn’t look like a mess to me. No one else’s house ever does. They may have toys on the family room floor or a backpack on a kitchen chair or a packet of mail on the counter or breakfast dishes in the sink or dog hair on the sofa, but these things never strike me as “messy” in someone else’s home. I know people live in the house, so I expect it to look, well, lived in.

When I go to someone else’s house and see shoes in the entryway and yesterday’s mail on the counter and a basket of clean laundry beside the couch waiting to be folded, it puts me at ease. First of all, I know I’m not the only one. Second of all, I don’t feel the need to stand on ceremony and hover in the entryway wondering if I’m dropping my coat in the wrong place.

Yet this is what I do whenever people come to my house. I straighten up like a maniac, run the vacuum, put out fresh towels, and try to make it look like no one lives here. And then I apologize for everything from the dog hair to the mismatched couch cushions to the carpet we need to steam clean to the Christmas decor that hasn’t been put away to the tiny bits of egg the baby dropped on the floor at breakfast.

It’s as if, by apologizing, I’m trying to convince this guest that the current conditions of my home are not at all usual. Perhaps, then, this guest will assume that I vacuum every day, that I wipe down the microwave after every use, that we don’t usually leave our Christmas tree up through January, and that the beds are always made first thing in the morning.

In fact, this could not be further from the truth. We may try, but this house is not a place where everything is immaculately clean and tidy all the time, where appliances are always sleek and updated (and never make that funny noise on the rinse cycle), where the blankets are always folded and the TV remotes are always put away and the toys always find their way back into the basket at the end of the day. Why? Because we live here. Isn’t that what a home is for, after all?

Isn’t home the place where we’re supposed to walk around in pajamas and snuggle the dog on the couch and forget to use a coaster and track mud through the hall on our boots? Isn’t it the place where we’re supposed to drop coats on the banister and crumbs on the kitchen floor and “outside” clothes on that one chair in the bedroom? Isn’t home where the cat uses the armchair as a scratching post and the kids roller skate on the hardwood floors and the dog lays on the bed and there are prints of noses and fingers on the sliding glass doors? Isn’t home where grass clippings get tracked in in the summer and snow in the winter and mud in the spring and pine needles in the fall? Isn’t home where our favorite place to sit is that old, faded armchair that used to be Grandma’s? Where wet mittens dry by the hearth and the coffee table has a scratch from that time the Christmas tree fell down and there’s a half-full mug of tea on the end table?

The most important thing about our homes is not their appearance. It’s the love and memories that are created there. Home is where we live, where we rest, where we let our guard down. Home is a sanctuary. We should stop apologizing for that.

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About the Author: Rachel Harebarry is a writer and essayist who tells authentic stories about life, family, growing up, and all the things that make us human. Her favorite subject is the mundane and all the victories and defeats of everyday life. Find more from her here.