20 Minutes

I've been cleaning all day.
Well, not ALL day, I woke up around 6:30 and fed the animals, gave our smallest dog her pain meds for the unusual back-pain symptoms she has been showing lately, and then walked both dogs at the local leash free park.
It's always a good start to the day when I can get it together enough to walk the dogs before the first light shines on Ottawa.
I came back home and shucked off the jeans and socks I seem to associate with restraint and service, in favor of the freedom of underwear and bare feet in the comfort of my own home.
I don't enjoy cleaning, but I love a clean house. The sense that it is ok to relax and play a video game or read a book without a pile of laundry or a sink full of dishes accusing me from the corner.
Cassie was asleep on the couch after a rough night. A combination of late night internet addiction (she had suffered from this particular malady for as long as I could remember) in combination with an attack of IBS had stolen much of the evening from her and she slept on the couch rather than disturb me in the bed upstairs. I thought I would return the favor.
I originally planned to simply tidy the bedroom. But, once I got started, realized that some music would be a great accompaniment. Radio can be good but I don't always enjoy the randomness of a local station. I instead opted to fire up the old laptop and plug in some stereo speakers from an older computer for a pretty good makeshift portable sound system.
I didn't make things to loud, but with the door closed I could watch my favorite film/music of late: Roger Waters The Wall, at a decent volume which allowed me to zone out and putter. I tidied, I threw away as much junk as I could find, I sorted clothes, it was nice to enjoy a natural high as I cleaned up the bedroom while playing air-guitar and singing along to one of my more formative albums.
What started as a small job in the end, as they are sometimes wont to do, ended up being a much larger job as I moved furniture, vacuumed under the bed and removed what looked like centuries of cat and dog hair from just under the edge of the baseboards. Then, before moving everything back, a hands-and-knees spot cleaning session with the steam cleaner to get almost every stubborn spot that had somehow evaded earlier attempts at removal.
In the midst of it all, Cassie awoke a few hours later and came upstairs to be surprised by the clean room that awaited her, the carpet still damp from the steam cleaning and the air full of the smell of soap and cleanser instead of dust and cat urine.
She saw that I had sorted a pile of her clothes, a point of contention between us, and, still wiping the seep from her eyes, walked into a warm hug and whispered: "you're such a nice man, I'm lucky to have you".
I hugged her back and told her I loved her too. We don't have a lot of moments like that any more. Not since the depression, and the loss of my job, and the unavoidable feeling I have lived under that I let my family down when I allowed them to take my job from me. It's hard to love someone else when you can't stand the site of yourself in the mirror. But we seemed to be ok today. It didn't feel as much like whistling past the graveyard as it sometimes does and felt like we really could see the other side of this.
I felt happy.
Finally, the house was a bustle of activity as our son woke up, the animals scurried and chased, (one would rarely believe the racket two small cats could make as they chase each other around the second story).  I kept listening to music but expanded my project to now include the main upstairs hallway as well as starting on the main floor.
I cleaned, I danced, I sang. Everything at home seemed to be flowing in the right direction for a change.
Cassie came up to sort some of her clothes and just as she started she said she received a message on her phone about a couch.