While I do know that the dishwashing chore is something that has been done to death in my blog, still, if I don’t launch off on a rant about it here, where else will I do it??!

Sometime during the fag end of October, during yet another frustrating dishwashing spree, I decided that I will try my best to wash the vessels after every meal time. It was at that time that I was having one of those inspiring moments reading Elle Luna’s ‘The Crossroads of Should and Must’. While she applies it to larger visions of life, I thought I will include this mundane task too in my list of things I MUST do as often as possible. After all, without any extra helping hand, I was already doing it every single day leaving a clear sink every night. So why not do it without procrastinating and letting the dishes pile up??

Now, guess what happened after that? I felt as though I was standing in front of the sink more often and yet, at 8/ 8:30 pm as I did the last round for the day, there still seemed to be yet another huge array of vessels!

Now the mind has this cruel way of playing around with your thoughts. Dishwashing is usually that solitary time when it is just me and my thoughts. And, as you obviously know, it is one chore that I just hate. As I let my thoughts go on an overdrive, the first thing it screams out loud, especially on an exhausting day, is ask me why the hell I gave up my career and chose to take on this task instead?!

While your own reason for giving up your career is to be with your children during their formative years, especially since we are living far away from all family and relatives, the household chores take up so much time and energy that you don’t really seem to be devoting that much time to your children that you thought you would and the constant reminder to them to do all their routine tasks, handle their tantrums and make sure they are having a safe outdoor play time take up more time and energy than the fun, relaxing moments. Thus, you feel like you are (and maybe you really are!) that monotonous version of yourself who cooks/cleans/dries clothes/ scrubs bathrooms/asks (yells at?!) the children to brush, dress up, eat and not run on slippery places or wait for you at road crossings. The onus on doing so much monotonous stuff all through the day bursts all through your thoughts during the night and far from being relaxed, you start questioning yourself why you are at IT yet again?! More monotony!

You meet a dozen different stay-at-home moms on a daily basis and the conversation once again revolves around cooking and cleaning since that is what takes up a huge chunk of time! You see that you all are sailing in the same boat.

There is, indeed, more to life than washing dishes!

Now, when you are a stay-at-home mom in a country that is not your own, more questions and conversations revolve again and again and again around your residency status in this country, school admissions and future plans which have never looked more uncertain. More monotony follows! The only near-future task that is visible to your mind is the cooking, cleaning and feeding activity waiting for you ahead. These are finite tasks which do take up a lot of time and energy!

My mind and thoughts really scream for a break from these! I wish I could work on channelling my energy to doing something intellectually stimulating! Or, even better, when thinking short term, I wish I could spend an entire day playing non-stop with my kids and reading colourful book after book with them!

I can go on and on about all these thoughts of mine. But, alas, didn’t I tell you that there is yet another huge lot of vessels waiting for me in the sink??!