Hello, world. Wow. It's been over a year since I have written anything on this blog. That's bad, even for me. I didn't even manage to get a New Year's card out this year, and Valentines are looking unlikely. What's my problem? Well, let me tell you something. I'm struggling.
I hesitated to publish this post. As we have established, I blog so infrequently that it hardly seems fair to let this account stand as one of a dozen things I have had to say here because it is not going to be sunshine and rainbows, but I need to get something off my chest. I am struggling right now, as many of us are, with just about everything. Try as I may to plaster a smile on my face and carry on with grace, I am faltering. I am wearing my struggle in the deepest fibers of my body and in the frazzled, flattened hairs on my aching skull. I am hurting. I am tired. I'm one step away from writing a spiritual. And yet, I feel guilty sharing any of this because I know I have it so good in the grand scheme of things.
But...life is funny right now in a way that makes me want to scream and cry and throw things. Even a Facebook quiz just told me that my life is being affected by 100% anxiety. I'd like to think if I had bought the full report, I would see that a positive trait would have shown up at 99%, but that's all I had to go on: Anxiety, A-plus.
Some of you may know that we recently suffered the lowest-key burglary in the history of petty theft a few weeks back. Someone came into our home through the garage door and stole what amounted to less than $80 in cash from our wallets while we slept. Oh, and he ruined some frozen food in the garage freezer, but that resulted in a good clean out of some suspicious fish sticks from two years ago, so whatever. That day our blessings overflowed: we didn't get hurt or murdered in our sleep; our child was not kidnapped or harmed; they didn't take any number of valuables left out in the open; we never cooked bad fish sticks. It amounted to just a wake-up call (literally, by the Loudoun Sheriff who was on patrol)
to remember to secure our garage and check all the door locks-- basic
stuff we managed to miss because life was hectic that day, and we were
unlucky-but-blessed. I carried on that day as usual and relayed the
story, all the while, thankful it wasn't worse but a little worse for
wear because it was a violation of my sanctuary. It was a lame break-in with a low consequence to us for our complacency.
(Complacency-- there's a word that is so omnipresent in the scheme of today. Current events, too, have shown where complacency in our lives has led us to the brink of danger. And we wake up. And we remain vigilant. But, what if we are just tired? I have no answers. Remember? I'm exhausted.)
If you've made it this far in the post, first of all, thank you. I don't profess to have a salient point. Writing simply makes me feel better sometimes. I want to recount is what transpired last night because I have realized that one of the reasons things are tough right now is that I need a creative outlet. Hopefully, you will find a little humor in it, or failing that some good old schadenfreude. Also needed sometimes.
Yesterday started off with a killer migraine for me and more generalized pain from the above-mentioned struggle. By 9:30 PM I was clearly exhausted from the day and had fallen asleep while waiting for the bathtub to fill. C had gotten in the tub to soak, and I awoke with a start. I went to adjust the bedside lamp, and in so doing, I knocked over a cup full of lemonade: Marion Blackberry Lemonade (which reminds me of DC's former mayor but is still highly delicious), to be exact. It is as stain-producing as one would imagine. I'm not much for cursing, but I will admit that colorful, whispered utterances escaped my lips. Bold purple liquid coursed down the side of the bed, and the carpet below looked like a small mammal murder scene. As I stumbled into the bathroom to get paper towels, groaning about what had just transpired, C leapt out of the bathtub to my aid. I began to soak up the main pool of liquid, and he instructed me to go get the carpet cleaner from the garage. You know, the one that is half-broken and almost useless, a fact which we discovered two weeks ago when the fish filter leaked three gallons of dirty fish waste water all over the basement carpet, resulting in a trip to the Home Depot for a rental and a weekend of carpet cleaning. We had not steam-cleaned the upstairs at that time, so clearly, it was time to dump something on the bedroom carpet which would necessitate a cleaning at 10 PM on a Monday night when everyone was already done with the world.
I managed to knock over many heavy things in the garage while extracting the broken carpet cleaner (Look! Another sign of my personal shortcomings and disorganization!) I hauled the heavy machine up the two flights of stairs, breathing hard (Look! You need to get more exercise, lazy!) and presented it to my hero, gasping for air. By the time I arrived, said hero had hurt his back trying to move the bed. He was hurting and not pleased with me. He said unkind things. I started to cry. I sprayed the Resolve on the carpet and started to cough and wheeze. (You have asthma, remember?) I realized, not only was my can of Resolve only a third full, my personal resolve was gone. I know, deep stuff. How did I get here? I went to get the furniture mover slides, I popped out my right knee and collapsed in a mess of snot and tears and sobbing like a Daytime Emmy nominee. Not even an Oscar-worthy performance, just a Daytime Emmy and it would probably have lost in the category. (Bad, useless Kelley.) As I writhed in pain, C managed to place the gliders and move over the bed. He got to work, which made me slither into action from my pathetic heap. I recovered enough to bring him a pot from the kitchen to pour hot water over the stain, as the carpet machine can only suck up the water, not distribute it. I assisted as he scrubbed the Resolve into the stain with his bare hand and brought pots full of more hot water. After a few trips back and forth, and with the renewed clarity of thought, I finally realized he was naked. He had been naked this whole time. He was vacuuming up the dirty water, buck-naked. I got the giggles, quietly, because I didn't want to upset him more. It's never been said, but it could be true that hell hath no fury like a naked man operating a broken Bissell mocked. Who am I to test that?
He managed to work out most of the stain, except for whatever dripped way under the bed, beyond where he could move the furniture out of the way and asked me to go get the box fan from the garage, which I could easily locate because it was one of the heavy objects that had fallen on me minutes earlier. Plus, he clearly couldn't go get it on account of his not wearing anything.
Life gave me lemonade, which is better than just lemons. In fact, it is the thing we are supposed to make when life gets hard. I then spilled this good thing on the carpet like a fool, turning it into a burden and a mess. And yet, someone cares for me enough to clean a carpet in the buff. He has no fingerprints on his right hand now from scrubbing chemicals into the carpet, but he still loves me. So I struggle, but I am not alone. I can plaster the smile back on, this time meaning it a little more.
I feel better having told you all that. Hold on to your beverages today, good people of the world. It's bound to get rough out there, but we'll get through this. Even if we have to scream and cry and write our way out of it.
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