Tag: momlife

Life’s Laundry Pile

As I sit here folding laundry it occurred to me that that life is like laundry… Sometimes its clean, sometimes its dirty and sometimes its in chaos.  It could be folded neatly, hung beautifully like in the all pictures dedicated to organizing a closet.  Or it can be in heaping piles hiding away in the closet, dirty and stained.  Our Laundry life paints a pretty good picture of our own internal battles that we struggle with every day.

I love how one minute every piece of clothing can be sorted, hung, organized neatly put away and in the fleeting next moment the clothes are all over the floor drooping out the basket. Piles on the top of the washer and drier.  Piles in the closet.   My daughters socks are in ever corner of the house and between every cushion of the couch.  To add to it she can never seem to find the laundry baskets, or the washing machine. Her dirties end up all over the floor in every room of the house, shirt over there, underwear attached to pants over there and if we are lucky, her underpants might make it to the washer, most of the time if I don’t get them picked up in time, my chocolate lab finds them delicious and eats them.  Yes he has a fetish.

My baby’s dirty clothes end up on top of my clean shirt that laid down to hang up but I got side tracked and now the wet soiled clothes have literately  pooped on my favorite clean shirt.  My husband washes his daily because of work, but not before they end up on the side of the bed not making it to the hamper in the least.  But he washes them.  My teenager…I should not get started here.  Everyone knows how that goes.  My teenager has more clothes than my daughters, my husbands and mine; it seems his clothes spend more time on the floor of his bathroom.  The clean ones spend even more time unfolded,  slung across the floor with no hope of ever finding their way to a drawer or a hanger.   I have two other children that do however manage to get their dirty clothes in their baskets with pride every time and they still have matching pairs of socks.  There is a glimmer of hope.   I just looked in my closet (the whole reason I am writing this post) and thought to myself… I have not seen a pile that high in ten years  (single life habits).  I went way back on this one!  I am still shaking my head.

I have a sign hanging above my laundry room entrance: LAUNDRY: Sorting out life one load at a time.  Lord have mercy there is more wisdom in this one saying then I ever thought possible.  Here I am sitting at the kitchen table, my pile of clean laundry dumped on the table, catching up and it hits me that life like laundry.  Its clean one minute, dirty the next, and we spend so much time washing, drying, hanging, folding putting it away all for it to get dirty again.  It just like life, some times we get so backed up that we feel overwhelmed, sometimes we are so good at just doing it everyday (god bless those people)  that it makes you shine as bright as the sun, and some of us can never find the joy in the clean clothes because we know the impending doom of whats to come anyway.

Every day is a delicate balance.  The dirty piles equal being overwhelmed, the clean neat piles are equal to happiness.  The urgency to get caught up is where the balance tips between clean and dirty.  The balance is in the “follow through.”  We tend to get so caught up in the ‘tackling’ that we forget to try and balance it out with a simple easy mantra to follow… “a load a day keeps the lorazepam away”… of course there always that fleeting moment when you want to toss it all out the back door pour gasoline on it and light that shit on fire.  Sometimes facing it “tackling” it, is just what we have to do with life.  One load, one problem at a time.  We have to tackle the hard stuff when its coming at us full force and other time times we make the field goal with ease.  No matter what we have to do it every day.  We have to face the world every day.

The struggle between doing it and facing it are harder for some than others.  We have to find balance in our lives knowing that we will be facing the laundry piles every day whether we want to or not.  The sunrises and the sun sets.  The Sun is shining above the clouds… I just heard that recently and its so true.  Just because it seems grey during the day, that bright warm star is still there.  So as my daunting task of laundry presses on, as it will everyday that I wear clothes to be washed, I will too.  I will wash, I will fold, I will hang the clothes.  I will do it on days I don’t fell like doing it.  I will ask for help in doing it.  I will try not to be so damn miserable doing it.  I will FINISH one load at time, and continue on to the next!  Just hang in there laundry doers!

If I win the lottery I will hire someone full time to service my laundry.  End of story.

 

We just have to believe that the “universe is unfolding as it should.”

Back in my twenties I was working in a family restaurant and waiting on couple young gentleman when they asked if they could read my palm.  Since I didn’t have to pay for the service I gave my okay.  When they finished they were starry eyed.  They explained how the lines worked and what one palm would reveal versus the other.  They pointed out some self truths that I was already aware of like my struggle between the religious obligation and my spiritual obligations.  But the most fascinating thing that my hand revealed was that I would have a child, a very special child i would give birth to at the age of 35.  Now to give you some perspective that was roughly 13 years ago( children were not on my radar).  But what struck me the most is what they said, ” this child is going to serve a purpose in your life and be the most special child.

The winter time blues have a funny way of making you think about your life making you stop and think about what is important.  After Mary died it has been a roller coaster of emotions that seem to go in cycles.  I imagine my life is the earth and my emotions are the winds and they dictate all of my emotions in storm form, some stuff is seasonal, it goes with the season, then some of it comes out of nowhere like a blizzard or twister.

That’s the stuff that gets me.  That’s the stuff that turns left when I anticipated right.  I have had to learn how to be a stronger person without my person with whom I talked to about everything in my life.  I have had to go on in this world with the currents and temperature fluctuations without her here.  Its like reinventing yourself at every turn, at every wind storm, at every rain fall, every snow storm, every hard freeze, every hard thaw and new spring blooms.  As my tears have fallen less,  my perspective on life has  grown deeper.  As I dig through her collections of treasures that meant something to her they really don’t mean anything to me but somehow there is a desire to hang on too it.  A desire to touch the hand writing or read the letters, or laugh out loud at funny things.  Sometimes its like those are the last things I have left in this world to talk too and only because they belonged to her.

I find that in times under pressure, the sadness and anger are stronger than ever, and when there is less pressure in my atmosphere I am lighter, airy and more forgiving.  I find that at every new sunrise I am in for a long day to look forward too and then at sunset I wonder about day I left behind.  I am sad most days but have had the courage to accept it and keep flowing to the seas.  Keep moving forward.  She would not want the sadness to keep me from following my dreams.  She would not want the sadness that she held on too to follow me every where I went.

Earlier I told you story to start this blog, Why did I tell this story you ask, well as some of you may know that in the last 10 years I have been Married, inherited two children from my husbands first marriage and then we had two of our own five years before I was 35.  In the fall when I was 34 I had gotten pregnant and I want you to know it sure was surprising .  I was done, on my way to raising our 4 children.  Not a 5th!!!!

God had a different plan, my palm became a prophecy. I was scared.  Some divine force was preparing me for something I had no idea was coming.  I can remember confiding in Mary that I was scared that I would lose all my other family in some accident and this baby and I would be it.  I thought the worst scenarios because of what was seen in my palm. I was actually  going to have a baby  at 35 and my palm reading was coming true.  I was a wreck for months.  At my baby shower I had everyone write something about me to my baby so for whatever reason something happened to me he would know me.  I told Mary all of these things and she never let me get to wrapped up in them for very long.  She said, “what will be, will be.”

When I gave birth to my new son, I was thirty five and not dead.  My family not dead, and the worst was over….I thought for sure I was in the clear.  I literally stopped thinking about the palm reading and went on with it.  My day to day.  My little tribe of five.  Mary even went on a road trip with us and I was so mad at her the whole time.  She was not well.  She was dying then.  I was so so mad at her.  I was mad at everyone (turns out Postpartum takes many forms).  Anyway looking back, we had some really great times, great laughs and all the kids got spend time with her doing the games she liked to play and being on the road with all of us.  I am glad she came.   I am not mad about that anymore.

On Oct. 10th she passed away.  She had had an Aortic aneurysm that started leaking and with in 24 hours it fully ruptured.  There was no coming back.  They did everything they could but her little weak, sick body could not recover.  On my drive back from the hospital in my silence I thought about the night ten years before… The baby that was going to be special, going to serve a purpose in my life, came to pass. My little man keeps me laughing when I cry, he keeps me cussing when he is into everything and he gives me the biggest best hugs a mama could have and he calls me me mama, wants his mama and is the biggest mama’s boy ever!  Sometimes life gives you the things you never saw coming, or doubted, because he needs you to be strong, courageous, and to end chapters in your life so that you can move on to the next chapter.

Every day I tell that little baby how special he is.  Because he is special and God knew that to overcome my sadness one day at a time, I would always have the light to move forward.  I would always have this little mischievous child that makes me laugh.  He makes my world go around.  He makes the storms pass,  keeps the wind blowing, and the currents flowing as they should.  We just have to believe that the “universe is unfolding as it should.”

Today I cave…

I don’t know what the hell happened but I woke up today mad as fire.  I cannot even remember dreaming about anything.   WTF?  I was angry.  Angry that I had to get up??? Angry at life??? Did I take my meds last night??? Yes.  But Angry was I.

I woke up to a dog in my face, (okay with that, that doesn’t happen a lot) but then the baby starts to scream at me.  Demanding a bottle as usual.  I am trying to tell him it is going to be okay but then he just gets louder I turn to look at my husband and he is asleep.  I still cannot figure that out, how he seems to sleep when the baby is screaming.  Sometimes I don’t hear him and my husband wakes up;  still I wonder how do they not hear the baby most times?  They other thought in all this early morning chaos developing is how come they don’t hear my alarm but not thier own?

I get up. Grab the baby. Find the bottle. lost the damn Binky again.  I hate that thing.  I spend more nights trying to find that damn thing than actually sleeping.  Any way as soon as I stand he smiles (momentary happiness on both are parts).  I scoop him up and go to the kitchen. I do not even know if I said good morning to the kids.  My wake up was so foggy.  All I know I was pissed.  Sponge Bob was on, my daughters alarm clock is blaring country music (not my cup of tea these days) and she is still sleeping.  She must take after her dad (doesn’t hear her own alarm). I get the stuff to make a bottle and little man is finally not crying. He then starts to talk.  From talking to me starts yelling again as soon as he sees the warm milk come out of the microwave as if I need to move faster!  Yes I have fallen to the microwave to heat the damn milk up… get over it now.   Get him back in to the bed with the bottle so that I can move on to the kids that need to get on bus in 25 minutes.

I walk right into the crib trying to get into the bath room (we have to push it out of the way at night because if I keep it where it is the baby has discovered the joys of light switches and turns them on and off in the middle of the night).  I push that shit out of the way and make it to the closet.  OMG.  The damn closet is a mess (its not a surprise but some how it fuels my anger).  My pile, the kids pile with my clothes too.  I grab pants, a shirt and socks.  No underwear!    I take my daugher her clothes with a miracle matching pair of socks and head to the living room.  Okay she is eating,  My son  is eating and baby temporarily happy. Check.   Underwear. Not Check.   Laundry room here I come.

Are you F**KING KIDDING ME!!!!! The dog just ate a second pair of underwear out of the dirty laundry basket for a second day in a row.  My daughters no less!!!! No wonder I cannot find any underwear.  The damn dog eats it!  I shuffle through the dryer and have no luck.  I go back to the closet and say a quiet “please God” prayer to help me find some underwear.  I open the drawer back up and there they are.  Say “thank you” prayer to God.  I needed those underwear.  Did I forget to mention I went through three laundry baskets full of clothes that have not made it to their destinations in three weeks?  Anyway yell at the kids that they have 10 minutes and socks and shoes and clothes are not on yet.  I go make the lunches and now that I think about it, I missed brushing my daughters hair.  I was about to then the Bus shows up at the driveway not even a drive by….missed that.  OMG i”m still mad.  I cannot seem to get my act together.

I grab the baby put him in the pack and play turn on Sesame’s Street.  And give him a toy car he shouldn’t have.  I walk to the fridge and open it up. pretty empty fridge. still frustrated that just two weeks ago we had to  unplugged it to thaw out ( another trial and tribulation not for today’s session).  I see the single solitary coca cola can in the fridge.  I cave.  Grab it, crack it open and gulp it down.  The sugary, carbonated joy goes down my throat.  I take a deep sigh and the tears roll down my face.  In this moment there is joy and a little guilty pleasure.  I have not had a coke for breakfast in years.  But damn that Coke was good.  Grab eggs, toast, and make breakfast for the little guy and I.

Somewhere in the middle of everything my husband did get up and saw that I was not a happy girl.  I told him I was angry and I have no idea where it came from and that I was raging.  He said to keep my head up and gave me a big hug.  I did feel better with the hug, but it didn’t change the fits of rage I was feeling all morning.  I think I did everything from count down from 5 and breath even cry.  But sometimes you just cave.  Surrender to the anger.

Good news is I sat down with my guilty pleasure, a coke my eggs and toast that the baby and I had to eat shortly after my husband left.   The baby was content to eat his toast and toss the eggs to the dogs.  I changed the channel and put on Kelly and Ryan.   Not a big fan of this show but some where between John Stamos pictures and a new talk show idea it made me laugh out loud.  Finally, a laugh came out loud. I think the baby even laughed.  I sat and drank my coke from the can and laughed at that them laughing.   The anger that had been with me all morning had subsided.  I looked around the house and felt the “to-do list” getting bigger, but it was okay.

I caved today to anger and that feeling.  I think its important to express when your upset even if you cannot pin point it.  And maybe that is just it…  You don’t have to have anything specific to set you off.  I guess its how you deal with the anger that matters.  I drank a coke and ate eggs and toast while watching five minutes of a funny show.  Sometimes it’s a pumpkin spice doughnut.  Sometimes it’s getting your nails done with a friend. Sometimes it’s your husband just giving you a hug. Giving you the love you needed. The kind of love that you need in your moments of rage.  Just take what you can get and cave . Anyway I digress.  To work I go.  Happy Thursday!