Obsessed with Laundry.

Doing laundry has become one of my most favorite activities for the last couple of years now. Previously, it was only about not having dirty clothes in my vicinity but over a period of time, It has now become a stress-relieving activity. This started when I was staying in the college hostel. Every floor in my hostel had a washing machine and while most of the people kept their laundry for the weekends, I usually was there washing clothes every second day. The funny part was that I always had something or the other to wash. Sometimes when I could not find the washing machine empty on my floor, I used to go find another one. While my floor had an automatic one, other floors had a semi-automatic machine where you need to finish washing the clothes and take them out and put them into the dryer. Because it was a different floor, I used to keep waiting there. Since the water cooler was adjacent to the machine, I also ended up having small talks with people I knew or smiling awkwardly at people I didn't know. 

It wasn't a time of Netflix and so I could not even watch something over my phone, moreover, there was also a risk of water splashing on the phone. However, there were these small jaalis through which the light seeped in during the sunrise and sunset and also gave enough view of the outside. If you looked out of these jaalis, you could see the campus, the students coming back from classes, some coming towards the hostel, and others going towards the mess. None of them were really aware of somebody looking at them from upstairs but probably everyone who came to wash clothes and stood there did that knowingly / unknowingly. From up there I could not just see faces but hear conversations, discussions, arguments, and the pauses in those moments when people poured their hearts out. 

Usually, people left their clothes in the machine and let them happen at their own pace. At times such as these, the next person in line put those clothes in the bucket they left near the machine. I, on the other hand never left my clothes alone, lest someone takes something away. On one such day, I was waiting for my clothes to get done. One of my seniors came to fill her water bottle. We recognized each other so we spoke to each other and then she left. The next day when she came to fill her water, I was again there washing my clothes. The third day I was back to washing my clothes, and there she was again. This time she couldn't control herself and ended up asking me if I washed clothes every day. I just smiled at her and said I liked not having any left over laundry - in spite of having been doing the laundry every day since the last 3 days. My boyfriend back then used to be in Switzerland and most of the times he called me up, I was washing clothes. After a point, he had even started guessing what I was doing when he called.

Washing clothes became an obsession after a year or so but it slowly also turned into an escape mechanism from the mess that was happening in my life, and thus my head. I started giving reasons to people that I have clothes to wash, when I wanted to avoid meeting them. I told people I was washing clothes when people made plans I was a part of.  I used washing clothes to escape from the stress I was going through because I became so engrossed in the activity that I did not think of anything else. I stared at the washing machine and the time left for it to stop. I even increased the time when I thought its too soon for it to get over. There came a pause in this when I moved to Goa. There was no washing machine and therefore I had to wash clothes by myself. The fulfilling activity of doing the laundry now came down to just once a week and sometimes even once in two weeks. But once I started living a more normal life after moving to Pune, the obsession was back. My Switzerland boyfriend was now in Pune and it was a good time for us to spend time together but again, my reasons for not meeting became about laundry and how I did not have enough time to do it on the weekdays, even though I still washed my clothes thrice a week.

It has been almost six years now since my obsession with doing the laundry began and it is only now that I have started giving it more time and letting it pile up. It is not easy for me but I know I have to let it happen and face whatever my mind is going through rather than pushing it away. Its time that I engage myself in better activities. Its psychologically proven that cleaning keeps away stress and blocks your (negative) thoughts. Now that I think of it, I would rather let my clothes pile up and be a mess than letting my thoughts pile up and make a mess out of me.