We’re going to be productive
I think. Saturday March 3. Isn’t it the 3rd? For some reason, it feels the days are blurring together. Maybe it’s the repetative nature of my job. The in the house job. The feeding the family job. The keeping clean laundry job. The seeking out and destroying dust bunnies job. The make the bed job. The get the children to make their beds job. That sort of thing. Suddenly, and seemingly without warning, we have gone to some sort of status quo that I’m not sure I know what to do with. So today, we’re going to be like any other family, and be productive on our one day of the week with nothing hard-scheduled. And clean out the garage. Again.
We’ve been cleaning out the garage for 9 months. At least. One plus is that it’s 70s weekend on the local radio station, and the Colonel has wired up speakers out to the garage that may never be actually organized. That’s what we’re excited about these days. 70s weekend. We get to Friday afternoon, the Colonel’ll call from the office, ask what we want to do this weekend (like it’ll be anything other than trying to catch up and clean out the garage) and I’ll say, I dunno, whatever, but it’s 70s weekend! Wow.
One child is at the grandparents. The other two are engaged in various craft and building block projects that will result in my demanding the vacuum being fetched and itty bits of styrofoam and fabric scraps cleaned up. Again. After they abandon the art and head outside. Something about getting into the project and never really wanting to finish and clean up. Hmm. Sounds sort of familiar. Ah. Tiny Dancer. I love 70s weekend.
Why does it take us months and months to clean out a garage? We’ve moved, like, 11 times in 13 years of marriage. You know how long it takes to finally get driver’s licenses, tags, voter registration, the right throw rugs, toilet paper holders and trash cans, stake your claim on the yard, get the kitchen user friendly, and all that? Usually like a year or more. And yet, for the most part, we’ve only spent slightly more than that in any given place since 1998. So the garage stuff has grown into it’s own monster threatening to find us in the night and eat us while we sleep. We’ve been hauling around some precious crap for nearly 10 years, even though it seems every time we’ve moved, truckloads have gone to the dump and Goodwill, if not garage sale-d, and yet, it grows. Maybe it gets cozy in the moving trucks and mates. Multiplies. Makes garage crap babies.
So now, we’ve actually owned and lived in a home for slightly more than a year. And we’re feeling like maybe we should get about the business of pretending we may stay here a while, even if we don’t. And that’s the funny thing. All those years I was crazy from moves and potential moves, and I only wanted to settle, now I feel sort of restless. That this just being another suburban family is sort of boring. Mowing the lawn, mulching the beds, building shelves in the garage…we could be planning the next great adventure! Which town? What house? What new friends will we make and excellent dinner parties will we throw? What yard can we make our own? Oh yeah. We already have one of those. In the end, it’s just a bunch of grass and weeds that have to be conquered. In the heat of a southern summer. And we could have more parties here. I guess.
It’s funny how you adapt. From the staunchest status quo-er, to nearly desiring some upheaval for the fun of it, that’s where God has taken me. If I hadn’t been molded into this more flexible person, life may have crushed me. But now I have to ask Him what next? Where do you want me to find my peace? Am I restless in my spirit because there is something coming, or do I not know how to bloom where I’m planted anymore? Because it’s hard to bloom with out the roots growing deep, and then when change does come, the roots have to be ripped up. Which usually isn’t comfortable at all. Kind of makes you reticent to flower in the next field, and the next, and the next.
Maybe I just need to say a prayer, ask for peace for whatever we are doing, wherever that is, no matter how many places, and go build that shelf with the Colonel. Put one foot in front of the other. As my Dad always says, this ain’t no dress rehearsal. If I don’t get it right this time, I don’t get a re-do. Be at peace now. When I can’t muster it up, I think He can. I think.
