Messy hospitality.
BY ALESHA SINKS
Alesha is a wife and a stay-at-home mommy to two lively boys, living in sunny South Florida. She loves cooking, reading, the beach, and long conversations with good friends. She writes essays and poetry to encourage herself and others to daily reset their perspective on truth.
We returned home from our honeymoon late on a Friday night, ready to start our new life in a downstairs, two-bedroom apartment.
While we had been honeymooning, some family and friends lovingly arranged our hand-me-down furniture in the living and dining rooms. When we arrived, tired and happy, most of our wedding gifts remained shrouded in bags and gift paper, awaiting our return.
And yet, on that Sunday afternoon, our giddy, newlywed selves invited our whole, tiny crew of friends over for lunch.
We met them at the grocery store to buy noodles, pasta sauce, and sausage, then together descended on our new home. Two girlfriends immediately jumped in to unpack and hand-wash the dishes we needed in order to eat. Others boiled water and cleared boxes from our dining room so we could crowd, all eight of us, around the stout four-person table.
Even in that moment, I knew my husband and I were setting a pattern for our life together. A pattern of opening our home, ready or not, to others.
Many times, when we lived four of us in a one-bedroom apartment, we would last minute invite friends, and my husband would slowly bring everyone up the narrow, entry stairs while I sprinted upstairs ahead and scrambled to stash away our hide-a-bed and the clothes I had dropped on the floor the night before.
In our most recent move, we welcomed several guests, close friends, and new acquaintances into our home during those early moving days. Unpacked boxes lined up next to the newly thrifted couch they sat on, and the kitchen still patiently awaited its turn under my paintbrush.
If we had waited to open our home till every box was unpacked, or at least hidden away, it would have taken until I put the Christmas decorations up. Longer still if we had waited until I’d painted the kitchen and our friend was able to help us repair the gaping hole in the wall by the dishwasher.
In all this craziness, I am convinced that opening our home to others, in the midst of the chaos of life, is so worth it.
And I suspect, if our guests were asked, they would say the same. After all, they said yes when invited, though each time, I warned them beforehand about what they were getting into.
Honestly, I often feel hesitant when inviting others into a less than perfect space. In the moments of asking and the moments leading up to our friends’ arrivals, fears nearly always rage in my head. Then the friends walk in smiling and chatting, and the fear slips away a bit. By the time I close the door behind them a few hours later, the fears have been essentially erased.
As time has passed, I have learned to ignore the fears as they shout at me, because I have come to believe firmly that connection is more important.
Connection, in our connection starved world, is worth a little discomfort. And if that discomfort has to be mine, the discomfort of opening my heart and home when both are far from perfect, so be it.
I genuinely believe that the graciousness of opening your home and your heart means more to people than the physical state of the home you bring them into.
Obviously, safety is first priority, but the rest of the things I think I need in order to host are usually just ridiculous standards I set for myself, based on an ideal that is never going to be practical for myself or my guests.
Because in the end, I don’t invite people into my home to wow them or even to spoil them. I invite them in to connect with them.
And with that goal truly at the forefront, everything changes in my hospitality.
Here are two (of the many) benefits to opening your home, in the midst of the chaos of life:
001. It sets the stage for building friendships based on real life.
My friends who are invited into our home regularly are under no assumption that our life is perfect. That we are perfect. They have seen the spots on the bathroom mirror I forgot to scrub off before they arrived, piles of mail waiting to be dealt with, and the tumbled stack of shoes by the front door.
If they came in the midst of our moving, they saw the unpacked, dug-through boxes and the bag of construction tools in the corner of the living room.
The idea is: we are not perfect, I am not Gwyneth Paltrow, and they know it. That’s not to say that I never clean or tidy before guests come. I do. But I also let things go and if it doesn’t happen. I apologize and move on. It sets the stage for a friendship based on realness and humanity.
And realness leads to real connection.
002. It allows you to take the pressure off when it comes to entertaining.
Once I decide that connection through opening my home is worth it, whether my home is ready or not, it takes the pressure off. I remind myself often how grateful I am to be welcomed into someone else’s home and how little of my attention goes into my surroundings when I am, then endeavor to do that for others.
Last week, I invited a friend for dinner on a night my husband was out with friends. I told her right from the start, “I know I won’t feel like cooking, so we’re having hot dogs and apple slices.” From that moment, the pressure was completely off! I didn’t worry when there were piles on my counter and played with toys on the floor. She knew what was offered and accepted, so I felt free to be myself and let my home be lived-in in front of her.
When I remind myself of my purpose in hosting, connection and realness, it is so much easier to let go of hosting stress, and welcome my guests with joy.