“How To Keep House While Drowning” With KC Davis

Originally published on “Terrible, Thanks for Asking” on February 21st, 2023

Self-help books sell mostly because they are selling you a way to solve a problem, and the problem is you. It’s never something that’s out of your control, or bigger than you, it’s just… you. But today’s book, even if it’s shelved in the self-help section, is different.

How to Keep House While Drowning by KC Davis is the most compassionate, most practical, most understanding book about how to do the kind of tasks that can confound and, like it says, drown you. In this episode, Nora talks with KC about the problems that arise when having a clean home becomes a moral issue.

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Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.

I’m Nora McInerny, and this is the Terrible Reading Club… an irregular meeting to discuss what we call good books for terrible times.

I have read nearly so many self-help books. I’ve bought books on organization. I’ve watched youTube videos…I have bought so many things that I thought would be the key to cleanliness and neatness: SO MANY ACRYLIC ORGANIZERS! So many neat little boxes to put inside of other little boxes! I have tried, like many of us, to get my life in order, to make it look as good as possible because… well, that’s what “good” adults do.

“Good” adults have perfectly made beds and spotless kitchen counters and flowers on the table whose water has NOT turned brown. “Good” adults have tidy bathrooms and fully stocked fridges and couches that are not covered in dog hair.

This moralization, this mentality…it makes you feel like absolute shit, doesn’t it? Because if your goodness is tied to how good things look, then what happens when they don’t look so good anymore?

Because there are a million reasons you might struggle to keep your house clean or your clothes washed or your hair neat: maybe you have a disability, or a mental illness, maybe your life is falling apart and the last thing on earth you want to do is the dishes, maybe there’s just too much to do, and something has to give, and that something is your laundry or your hygiene.

Self-help books sell mostly because they are selling you a way to solve a problem, and the problem is you. It’s never something that’s out of your control, or bigger than you, it’s just… you.

But today’s book is -- even if it’s shelved in the self-help section, is different. How to Keep House While Drowning is the most compassionate, most practical, most understanding book about how to do the kind of tasks that can confound and, like it says, drown you.

It’s slim and light and written with the neurodivergent and the overwhelmed in mind (which, good, that’s who needs this book!). Words are bolded, highlighted, you can skip around, there are references in the back…the point is not to make you feel like a piece of crap for what you don’t do, but to help you find a realistic and compassionate way to do what you can.

And we’re going to start our story… on TikTok. In 2020.

KC Davis: So I had just had a baby. And three weeks after I had a baby, I had a baby. She went to the NICU for like three days. And then three weeks later, the world shut down. Like COVID lockdowns. And like, I had a whole postpartum support plan. Like, I'm a therapist, I understand mental health. I had, you know, it was hard to get through my first baby. So for the second one, I was like, I'm ready. I've got, my two year old was like going to go to preschool and my family was going to come for shifts for like several months or weeks at least. I was going to get a cleaning service to come in. I had just started a new moms group and they were going to like drop off meals. I mean, I was just so proud of this plan. And then the world shut down. And, my husband and I had moved to a city where we didn't really know anybody. And so my family couldn't come over because they couldn't travel. And he had just started working for this job. And, and he was a new attorney and working for a law firm, working seven days a week and like doing all he could to be supportive but like, not, just doesn't have very much in the tank with, with trying to work and like. I've experienced a lot of pain in my life. I know what it's like to be in pain. I know what it's like to be in so much pain. You don't think you'll wake up in the morning and you're like, genuinely surprised when you do? This is not that. There's this other, like, realm of painful experiences that have more to do with feeling emotionally flatlined. They have more to do with this, like very quiet desperation where you suddenly find that there's nothing to look forward to. And that doesn't make you sad. It just makes you restless. It makes you dread the next day. Not because the next day is painful, but because the next day is completely devoid of not only pleasure, but any feeling at all. And you feel every night as you go to bed, like you're staring down the barrel of a shotgun because tomorrow's going to be exactly the same, and the next day will be exactly the same. And there were no weekends because my husband's working seven days a week. And and the amount of things in my day before this and even, like, getting back to this, like what keeps me afloat, like mental health wise is, it's sort of funny, but like, the small optimisms. It could be as small as it's that moment you realize it's Friday and this little part lift in your soul goes, Oh. Right. It's walking out and realizing that it's perfect weather and you like your little soul just kind of goes, oh, yeah. Oh yeah. That thing you could be thinking about-

Nora: Where you open the fridge and there is like a treat that you forgot was in there. And you’re like [gasp]. Yes!

KC Davis: Yeah! So that's that, it's almost the weekend. It's almost that birthday party. It's almost like vacation. It's almost that. It's that little like optimism that goes on and on and on. And and all of a sudden, my life was completely devoid of that. And I'm also like a project person, like I've got real severe ADHD. And so, like, I get a lot of dopamine from like this little project here, this little project here, this little passion project here. But when you have a two year old and a newborn, you don't get to do those anymore.

KC Davis: The meaning has been sucked out of my bone marrow and I see no end in sight. And there are no small pleasures. And the world is gray. So that's where I was when I posted my first TikTok video. And [laughs] I thought it was so clever. I remember thinking, like, from the annals of the Internet, like mothers everywhere will unite and laugh about like what a shit show being postpartum is. Which is why it kind of took me by surprise when somebody commented just, “Lazy.”

The video pans through the reality of KC’s life…the undone laundry, the piles of dishes, the REALITY of this blah feeling, this ugh feeling…of life with two little kids and ADHD during a global pandemic. And there are lots of comments but then there’s THAT comment. LAZY.

And look, we’ve all been on the internet. Parts of it are wonderful and parts of it are, you know, a person calling you lazy or much, much worse.

KC Davis: Like, as I get it, we're all anonymous. We're just flipping through. We don't really see all the people in front of us as real complex people with human lives and feelings and whatever. And so I'm typically like pretty gracious when someone says, Can you please delete it? Like, I really can't take the, the backlash or the heat or like why really get saying that however this particular person like doubled down in the comment section, because somebody commented and responded to her and was like. Geez, like try breastfeeding a baby and get back to me. And she doubled down and was like, I have breastfed my babies and you know, cured cancer and whatever her like list of shitty accomplishments and I was like and my house never looked like that.

Now, KC knows she is not lazy. She’s been up six times a night to breastfeed her baby. She’s caring for two kids with postpartum depression and undiagnosed ADHD and she even managed to manage homemade enchiladas and yeah, the pan was still dirty but who cares?? Well, that lady cares. And she’s a stranger on the internet, not a person that KC knows. But she IS a person out in this world. A person who might step into a messy house someday, and not see the woman struggling in front of her…but the mess in her kitchen.

KC Davis: And she probably wouldn't say that out loud to anybody. And that's almost, like, scarier. Like she could be your daughter's best friend's mother that drops her off one day and sees the inside of your house. And that's what she's thinking, right? At least that's what's scary for me.

Every hero has an inciting incident. Peter Parker was bit by a radioactive spider and became Spider-Man. Batman’s parents were murdered and left him a lot of money and he spent it on gadgets and costumes. And that comment -- Lazy -- is the inciting incident for KC to become the self-compassion, care-task hero of Tik Tok.

And if these things are simple for you, if you’re the kind of person who would see a video like that or a messy kitchen and think, lazy. I’d love for you to keep listening. If you’re a person -- like my MILs or my husband -- for whom these things are so natural, so easy, you don’t even need to think about it? Keep listening.

And if you’re a person who is struggling with the shame of not being able to keep up with the tasks of adult life? You know what I’m going to say. Keep listening. Because the point of this episode is to cut you a break, and get you some help.

And we’ll get into that after the break.

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No matter what that woman said, KC was not lazy. She was tired. She was depressed. She was overwhelmed. She needed help. But she wasn’t lazy. And neither are you. Because according to KC… laziness does not exist.

Nora: What are the things that we as a culture believe are laziness, and what are they really?

KC Davis: Hmm. Okay, so laziness is a really important social construct. It is the way that you justify … not affording resources to people that you believe to be below you. We justify the fact that we have lots of money and that person is homeless because get a job. Right. Lay off the booze, get a job, work hard. If the only thing standing between my success and someone else's failure is grit and character, then I never have to help anybody. That is the have not. I can always justify hanging on to what I have supporting systems that would support that. And and that's really the purpose of laziness, right? It allows me to look at a mother whose house is a mess. And instead of thinking, wow, you must need more support to think. How could she allow that to happen? It allows us to look at somebody that has an addiction and say, well, if you were a better, more moral character, that wouldn't have happened to you. And so I don't care if you have health care or safe injection sites or Narcan. It allows us to look fat people and say, I don't care if you're comfortable in the seats or if you have access to mental medical medical care. The only difference between me and you is that you are gluttonous and lazy and you ate too much and you decided to be this way. It allows us to look at people who are disabled and say, I don't care that you don't have access to these spaces, you know, you shouldn't have allowed yourself to be disabled. I mean, that's what it's for. It's for maintaining a caste system of wealth hoarding while other people don't have access to basic resources.

Nora: I also think that's one of the appeals of self-help as a genre, is focusing it inward, taking your attention inward to self-mastery, to just, you know, if the issue is you, well, then you really don't have to worry about everyone else because they can worry about themselves. And there was a very popular self-help book that came out around the time of one of my books that I know you also did not enjoy that, you know, just swept through. White millennial women just became like a way of living. Right. And that message was essentially like, if you can't do this, you're lazy and that's your fault.

KC Davis: Mm hmm. And I cannot tell you, as a therapist, and I have lots of therapist friends, the amount of women that ended up in therapy after that book, going, I feel like such a failure and I don't know why. There's this initial motivation. Yes, I can do it. They're psyching me up. They're my cheerleader. They can do it. They're psyching me up. And then they can't. And then the only conclusion they have. It's quite a lot like dieting, actually. The only conclusion that they draw is. I must have not tried hard enough. It must be me. Yeah. And I think that a lot of what's out there with self-help stuff is a lot of people who are trying to reverse engineer why they're better. So like, for example, I had this thought this week where I was like, you know, I wonder what it would be like if every day this week I took a shower and put on a little bit of makeup and wore, like an outside outfit. Like, I wonder what that would be like. Like, I kind of want to try that and see what it's like. So let's say, by the way, I haven't showered in since. I just literally had not had time. But let's pretend like I did. Let's pretend like I went all seven days doing that. And at the end, I was like, Wow. This felt great. And I had this sort of list of the ways in which my life felt great because of it. What most people do is they turn around and they go, Here's the key. If you want to feel great, you need to get up every day, take a shower every day. Put on a little bit of makeup. Really be presentable. Then they will absolutely pull out of there. But some sort of complimentary philosophy on why it works. And they make it up because when you believe in yourself, like you would believe in a friend, because when you treat yourself as though you are someone who deserves to have it, because when you I mean, they just make it up and and then they go, boop! There it is. There's the panacea. Everyone needs to do that. If you would just do that, you would feel all these things I feel. Here's what that misses. So let's take me, for example. The very fact and I know this because I'm a person who has had struggles with motivation and with energy and with postpartum depression and with ADHD. The very fact that I woke up on Monday morning and went, I would like to try taking a shower every day this week and seeing how that makes me feel. That desire, that feeling of motivation to do that. That is a result, not a cause. That's a result, that's feeling better. I didn't feel better because I took a shower every day. The fact that I woke up and thought, I'm going to shower every day this week and see what happens is evidence that I have begun to feel better. You can't prescribe your results to someone else like they are causes.

KC Davis: People who have followed me from the beginning know that, like, I didn't come to the Internet with some, like, polished philosophy on home care and self care and all this kind of stuff. Like I came as who I was. And it's that thing where, you know, you you can't give yourself the advice you need, but all of a sudden you see it in someone else. You're like, Oh, let me give you some insight to that. Let me give you some therapy on that. Let me give you some feedback on that. And so I started really engaging with people online who were saying, I feel so shameful about my house. And I'd go, Why? What's there to be ashamed about? Shame. Shame is the product of a moral decision. This isn't a moral decision.Being a messy house isn't moral. Right. And someone saying, you know, can you show me how to do the dishes? And you go, yeah, okay, we're going to do the dishes and it's fine. Take a deep breath. Okay? Dishes doing your dishes is a moral is is a functional task, not a moral task. So who cares if you have maggots? We're going to figure it out. Right? We you are a person that deserves clean dishes. That's why we're doing this. Not because you have to get things clean so that you stop feeling so ashamed. What a piece of junk you are like that. Now that's off the table. You're just a person that deserves to function. And we can think outside the box because if if sort of the everyday help around cleaning and laundry and, and sort of pop psychology stuff and pop motivation stuff, like if that's helping you, it's not because you're not trying hard enough. It's probably just because nobody's ever given you the kind of advice that actually fits your brain and your lifestyle and your and your strengths and weaknesses or whatever. And so all of this stuff was really organic and I was like walking with my audience and, you know, I'd wake up one morning and be like, Oh, I should do a family closet. Why am I walking to three different closets to dress three different people? And then like that was the days. Tick tock. I was like, Look, I made a family closet. And then someone would say, Oh, I want to do this, but it just feels like it's not right. Then I'd be like, Not right. Let's talk about that. So I'm literally unpacking all of this. And like bringing my own accommodations into my house and giving other people advice. And we it was really just like a journey we went on together.

KC Davis: I lived, gosh, at least seven years of my life. Moralizing. Every single thing in my life. I got sober when I was 16 after a pretty severe drug addiction. And the the rehab was really big on like responsibility and accountability and, you know, service and and like every sort of like issue that I had or behavior like destructive behavior that I had was basically couched in this. You know, it's about my selfishness, my self-centeredness, my immaturity, me being unhealthy. And, you know, that my job was to, like, face the music, do the work, get better. And so but everything was moralized, right? Like, why am I dressing the way I am addressing it's for attention and I shouldn't need attention because I should be able to give myself that on my own validation. So that's wrong and bad and I'm not as good. Moving into a 12 step group that was similar, moving into a religion that was similar to a church that was similar, was like every single thing was evidence of whether I was healthy enough or enlightened enough or spiritual enough or any of these things. And it was like this linear line where the more of those things I was, you know, the more worthy of being admired I was and the less of those things I was. And it was just it drove me nuts to have every single small decision under the microscope like that.

Nora: How did you work your way out of that mindset?

KC Davis: I. Left. I was in a 12 step group that was like that. I don't believe that all 12 step groups are problematic at all. And in a lot of ways, the one I was in really helped me. But unfortunately the one I was in sort of turned into a cult. And that's a literal. Yeah, literal cult. Right. Guy at the top sleeping with everybody. Lots of very controlling behaviors about where you're allowed to be and what you're allowed to do in every facet of your life. And and if you leave the cult, you're going to drink and die. So I left. I also met my husband, who I credit for like, being such a rock to me, because he was this like beautiful man who was mature and he was spiritual and he really cared about people. He also would like look at the things I was stressing about and being like, I mean, I don't think it matters. Like it's probably fine. I don't think. It's fine. It's fine. I'd be like, but, you know, it's answer election. I do it this way or that way because on this side, you know, I'm kind of like looking for validation. But on this side, like, I could really help people. He's like, I don't I don't think it matters. I just pick one. Pick one. What are we doing?

Nora: We're obsessing. Okay. Get on board, buddy. We got to pick this apart.

KC Davis: He was so chill. And he really likes me, even though I wasn't perfect. And so. I don't know, man. I just got older, I guess.

Nora: Yeah. Yeah. The power of being liked, honestly, I think is even better than being loved. Is having someone like you and like you, regardless.

KC Davis: Yeah. And listen, I am. I am definitely one of those people like, you do not need a relationship in your life to make you whole. But I also think that some of our self-help stuff has gone so far in the opposite direction of like, you don't need anyone, you should feel worthy by yourself, you should give yourself your own validation. And I'm sorry, but like the difference maker in my life is like having one person. And it doesn't matter if it's a spouse or a partner, a friend or your mom or whatever. That was, like, totally accepting of me. And mirroring that truth back to me, like we're supposed to have that truth mirrored back to us, at least by someone.

Nora: Yeah, we're not, we're not actually built to be just self-sustaining units and islands that never like that are just completely disconnected from everybody around us. I think that's yet another sort of impossible task to achieve, to be the self fulfilling human, like the all the self-cleaning oven, the self, everything like. And it seems like just like the opposite side of like the self-help coin, like. Right. I will I will perfect myself in another way where I don't need anything from anybody when actually we do need each other. And when you stop. Our audience is filled with people who are have gone through really hard things or in the middle of something really, really hard are watching somebody else looking on the outside trying to you you know, adjacent to tragedy in the thick of it been in the thick of it, still waiting through it. And I found your book so helpful as for so many reasons. But what happens when you stop seeing care tasks, the task of of caring for yourself and your environment so your environment can also be functional and caring for you. What happens when you stop seeing it as a moral issue?

KC Davis: It's the best kept secret of how to backdoor into better mental health, because so many of us that are on this journey of like constantly feeling like we need to self improve, constantly feeling like we need to heal, constantly looking for those self-help books and and even like therapy. Like you have to look at what's motivating that because if what's motivating that is if I could reach this level of put together and healed and not broken anymore, I'll finally be worthy. I'll be worthy of love from someone else. I'll be worthy of love for myself. I'll be worthy of good things. And like that, that journey does not have that for you. It's very different to be on a journey of self-improvement, not because you feel like it's a moral obligation, but because you deserve. You feel like you're a person that deserves to feel better.

Nora: Hmm.

KC Davis: And that is a really heady, existential concept that's difficult. But I find that almost anybody can engage in the conversation about Why are you doing your dishes? Are you doing them because you think you have to? Or are you doing it because you think you're a bad mom if you don't? Or are you doing them because you feel somewhat shame when you look at them and they're not done? And I don't really want to do my dishes. I don't actually care if there's dishes in the sink, but I feel like I'm supposed to carry the dishes and the thing and just get down to the part that goes, you know, at the end of the day, you're a person that deserves to have a clean plate to eat off of. And I don't care how many are. You're saying I care if you have a clean plate. I care if you believe that you are a person that deserves a clean plate to live off of. I care. I don't care. If you wake up in the morning and pull the sippy cup full of curdled milk out of the couch and have to wash it. I care that on some level you believe that you are a person that deserves to function, that you are a person that deserves to come downstairs in the morning and have a kitchen that functions for you and to have a slightly less stressful morning routine. And, and once you believe you deserve that, I want to validate that your barriers are legitimate. And we can think about ways to help you get to that place that have nothing to do with you not being good enough, that just have to do with you needing some, needing some accommodations. And I think that if you can master those skills at the level of your dishes and your laundry and your dust bunnies, you can begin to transfer that skill into all of the areas of your life.

It’s not a moral issue. It’s just about gentle skills. And we’ll be right back.

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During this interview, I was sitting in a very messy room. It had been a heckuva few weeks, and my office was filled with stuff, and I just kept sweeping it off my desk and into various piles on the floor. I was -- appropriately for this conversation -- overwhelmed, and I finished every workday by just walking out of the room and shutting the door. Out of sight, out of mind…until the next morning.

KC Davis: So one of the ways that I prevent myself from feeling overwhelmed when I need to look like clean up or tidy a space is that I remind myself that even though it seems like there's a sea of items, there's really only five things in any space. There is trash. There are dishes. There is laundry. There are things that have a place that are not in their place. And there are things that don't have a place. And if I stop at the start at the top and I throw away all of the trash, and then I move all the laundry to the laundry room, and then I put all the dishes in the sink. And then I go like section by section, putting away everything that has a spot and making a pile of the things that don't have a spot. At the end I can decide, am I going to chuck this into a basket and call it a day, or am I going to like try and organize some of these things that don't have homes or try and get rid of some or whatever. But when I do that to a space, I can take like the most overwhelming looking space and be done in less than half an hour. Usually it takes me 15 minutes or 20 minutes, right? And it's because it gives my little brain, my little neurodivergent brain, a clear map of what to do next. And then I'll have this decision paralysis and I'm not going to be distracted. And it just breaks it down into simple steps for me. And every time I do it, I try to at least find a home for one or two things, and it gets faster and faster and faster.

There is trash. There are dishes. There is laundry. There are things that are not in their place. There are things that don’t have a place.

It’s that small! It’s that simple!

One of the many things I highlighted in KC’s book was this sentence:

You don’t exist to serve your space, your space exists to serve you.

But when our spaces get overwhelmingly messy, when all of these tasks add up and the shame seeps in and it all seems like it’s too much and that space doesn’t serve us and our brains start to tell us what we should be doing, how things should be…

KC has a reframe.

Instead of saying, “my bathroom is a disaster, I am so gross,” think of your tasks as a way of caring for your future self.

Something like, “wow, future me will really appreciate having a clean sink when she washes her face tonight.”

As she wrote, “sometimes you may not get up even with the change in self-talk. But you know what? You weren’t getting up when you were being mean to yourself either, so at least you can be nice to yourself. No one ever shamed themselves into better mental health.”

KC Davis: And everything is like slow, gentle, organic. I was talking to a friend recently and she was talking about how she wishes, she's like her whole life, she's never watched her face. Me neither. And she's never needed to. It's fine. We just sleep in our makeup and wipe the underwear under eyes off in the morning. And it's like, well, no makeup. But she was going to the age where she's, like, premenopausal. She's like, you know, but now I have dry skin. So now I like there's a functional need for, like, some moisturizer. She's like, so I bought all these serums and she's like, I'm just sort of fit because, like, I just know I'm not going to do it. Like, I know that I'm just not going to be the person that, like, takes her makeup off in the, washes her face and then, like, does all the whatever, whatever. And so my response to it was like, well, that's because there's too much. You want to go from, like not washing your face to having a serum, like, no, no, no. I think why don't instead I think you got to have a smaller step. She's like, Well, what would a smaller step be? And I was like, Well, what if you could just get some tinted moisturizer? And instead of wearing foundation, you were a tinted moisturizer because it would do the same. You know, it would have a similar effect. Then you wouldn't have to take it off. A because it's just moisturizer. Number two is moisturizing your skin. If you want to wipe it off at night, maybe you get one thing. A baby wipes. But. But it's that stuff, right? Like this idea that I have this huge motivation to change every single thing. I bought a standing desk and a treadmill, and I was like, Oh, I'll just start it 2 minutes a day. I didn't. I can't. I literally can't. It occurred to me that I have to start with standing. I have to stand for 2 minutes at my desk and begin like have a whole journey with just standing for. I have literally sat down for the last two years. Like, I have to have a whole journey of, like learning how to like have the stability and the course of break to stand for long periods of time before I just start walking.

Starting small isn’t as exciting as making big, huge, SWEEPING changes and resolutions and declarations. But it’s kinder, and it’s more realistic. So if it feels too big?

KC Davis: Make it smaller, and when you think you have the smallest step, try to make it smaller.

Try to make it smaller. Try to make it more compassionate. Try to slip off that cloak of shame and see a mess as a mess, and not a moral failing.

And this is really hard…when there’s just so many other people who seem like they have it all together.

Nora: I became a mother at the beginning of Instagram and at the height of Pinterest. At the, just the chomping at the bit, everything's all the same, weddings look the same. Everything look the same. Right. And there is a way to have a baby. And it looked a certain way.

Nora: So at the at the sort of beginning of the idea that all of your life is a performance, and when you are comparing your performance against a person who has a DSLR or who has editing software, who has the time, the space, the money, many sort of intersecting privileges to perform their life really well and a vested interest in making sure they perform it well to sell you something that will hopefully help you perform this well. That's, like that's very, very … it just has a it's so insidious and it looks so good. It looks.

KC Davis: Yeah.

Nora: So good. And it's made to look so easy and it's not.

KC Davis: So I always refer to that as comparing my behind the scenes footage with somebody else's highlight reel. And I'm looking at the way they seem like they feel, and I'm comparing that to the way that I actually feel, as if those are like in any way comparable. I think that's right. And I think it leads to this feeling like even when you do get it right for the photo or for the moment, it feels like you're cosplaying. At least it does to me. Like it's the same kind of it is pleasurable, but like it's the same kind of pleasure I get from. You know, dressing and going to Ren Fair. It's like it's fun to feel as though the whole picture is complete. And I just also I always refer to, like, cosplaying as someone who has their life together.

Nora: Yeah. And it's one thing when it's a wedding, right? It's one thing when it's like, everybody knows. Like, that is the highlight reel. Like, that's a highlight. And we got professional photos taken. But when it's. When it's when it's you know, somebody is kitchen when it's a tour of somebody's pantry, which is the size of your kitchen.

KC Davis: When she's a momma. Yeah. In the perfect nursery. With the babies, with the baby asleep on her shoulder and her hair and makeup done. But not too darn. And her clothes look really nice and she's very thin. And it has some caption about, like, savoring the moment, and it's just this whole package of peace. And I'm looking down at like the oversize shirt that I have on and the vomit stains and you know, this the mass. And I'm like, oh, god, I'm not savoring it. And then I'm thinking, like, I could save it if it looked like that.

Nora: Yeah, maybe I could save for it if there was not if there wasn't mail on this counter. Okay. I love, by the way, I love a house that looks and feels like somebody lives there. When it's somebody's wedding, it's one thing. When it's somebody's life, it's another. And if I spend enough time on the Internet, it doesn't take much time. It makes me hate my life because it makes me hate my house and it makes me hate my perfectly wonderful home, which I call a regular ass house. I made a couple of videos there. Welcome to my regular ass house. Okay, this is our the kitchen cabinet. You cannot open it in the fridge at the same time. Please do not attempt to do like.

KC Davis: When you watch Modern Family, you're not thinking about the home that they're in, but you're kind of like unconsciously registering like what that house looks like and you're not consciously registering like that's a movie set. No one lives there. Like, you're not under obligation for like that to be what your house looks like. And in reality, like, I feel like when you look at magazine covers and movie sets, like we should be looking at those things. Like we look at the weird outfits at New York Fashion Week, like, like you're looking at like, okay, I know, like, great. That's a beautiful piece of art. But I also know that like, most women don't look like that and nobody's going to actually wear something that looks that weird and like, this is a concert, it's concept art that will eventually trickle down into like some cute jumpsuit at Target. And I think that we don't necessarily have it trained herself to do the same thing with like spaces and homes, which is like, gosh, Martha Stewart, what a beautiful like spread. But that's concept art.

Most of us do not live in Pinterest homes, or Instagram homes. Or on movie sets! We live in regular homes where people take their shoes off in the middle of the entryway, where sometimes a few cups pile up next to the bed, where the laundry pile never really gets down to zero, where we really did mean to mop the floor but like, did we? I know I wiped up that spill with a damp cloth at least.

Most of us are doing our best in a world that feels like it’s spinning out of control, and it is enough for us to do what we can…and forget the rest.