I was feeling crazy because every room I walked in had so much stuff piled everywhere. Stuff stuffed as far away as possible but still there. The other life in motion stuff takes precedence, the new puppy learning to swim and walk along with the horses in the creek. The mom to wheel in and out and clean and feed and make comfortable. The piled stuff has had to wait.
The kids coming and going from college and bringing a desk and a rack and boxes and abandoning them in the breezeway or stacked up all around my treadmill. There is a wall of Not My Stuff. Behind that stuff is poppa's stuff, my mom's stuff, older son Bruce's stuff, Nandy's I-had-to-move-here's-my-stuff. And then yeah my stuff. And B's stuff. And work stuff.
You know some days when you get everything done perfectly. Today was a whole day stretched out no subbing and I got to get Bess off to school, then check on mom, then take a small ride with the dogs. Then put careful hay out in haybags to keep the horses busy all day picking the hay out by small pieces with their fat lips. Then get mom cleaned up and lifted into her chair using the hospital lift. It's kind of fun to see her raised up mechanically in her hammock and then lowering her into her chair. She's my content little bird. Roll her out to the pool, give her an apple and then swim because I'm sweaty and there's only a few days of swimming before it's too cold. I noticed today that when you're swimming if you let it, the water holds you up. What kind of miracle, how have I not noticed that. I was so busy pushing water around like I was in charge, and all along it's quietly doing half the work. I love how water envelopes you and yet does not care at all about you.
I like seeing mom and the dogs by the pool while doing my laps, and the horses picking at their hay out behind the big lush green trees. I feel lucky, like I was made to be slow and in this life. Caring for the beings, and being outdoors to see it all.
I decided I'll clean out the garage a little at a time and do a little writing each day. So I wheeled mom inside and put some finger foods on her tray (sorry fingerfoods god) and then got two trash bags, one trash one donate, and before I even made it to the garage decided the breezeway was also clogged with stuff so I veered into there. Maybe it was 11:30.
Somehow it was then 3 o'clock. I had blown leaves out, hefted desks and other stuff the college daughter put in there, moved the generator we had to buy for the flood we had back in January, just basically made it so nice and airy, I can't even believe it. In this one little area there is some order, and neatness. Not perfect, but BETTER.
I can do things. Little by little. When I was getting mom ready for bed at the end of the day, I was thinking about how hard it has been to keep up. I realized suddenly this is the most crowded my life will ever be. It's not going to get worse. This is where I am, the aftermath of 23 years of kids, the debris is all clustered around me like the hurricane path that life has been for all these years. There is constant coming and going, and depositing of things. I had only been doing the basics of caring for people, and the debris of life had to do what it was doing all without me, which is the calling card of mess that has become my garage. But when I look back, my only HALF to the rafters garage junk is really not that much considering the immensity of the 23 years with this family growing and expanding. I can stand in the garage doorway and see that I have been focused on the right things. The constant life around me and the mess it leaves? It would take a hive of all the bees working to have kept up. I'm a hive of one. One worker bee.
So brushing my teeth I kept feeling surprised this is the messiest my life will ever be. Forget the Oscars, this is what I have built. This real life garage mountain of discarded after dinner mints. It helped me see the end of it. That I don't have to despair. The mountain is manageable. It's not getting bigger. I can manage it small bit by small bit, and be glad for each thing as it goes away, because it was junk that kept someone busy, or it made someone happy or it was someone's favorite shirt. How lucky that my problems are cleaning up after the incredible good fortune of three healthy, funny, loving, smart babies, and knowing them every minute, their whole lives. Stopping everything else. Taking the time and being home in my life with them, holding their teeny fingers to walk through every mud puddle in the rain with their tiny pink boots. While building this incredible garage monument to mess in the background.
A monument to greatness.
The mess is sigh. Yes. But we all have to clean up after explosions, and wasn't it spectacular.
(PS Bess is only 16. I'm not rushing. But with no younger one coming up behind her, since she's the caboose, I have the room to grab the shovel and follow behind the elephant now. No rush. But finally time, tiny bit of time for this part, breathing room.)
Birth to mess to cleaning to peace. To grandkids. But that won't be my mess. That'll just be fun.
