Life Is A Mess And A Miracle

 

“Who made this BIG mess?” ~Big Comfy Couch

Have you ever had one of those days where your life feels like a mess, nothing is working out, you can’t find that thing you put somewhere safe but now that you need it you can’t remember for the life of you where it is? Then you look around and realize the dishes are piled up, there are clothes all over the floor, and why on earth are there sand toys on my desk? Well, for me that tends to happen on a Friday. Well… it’s not always sand toys… but there is usually something weird on my desk… Anyway, Friday has become the day I clean, organize for the upcoming week, and maybe get a project or two done that I didn’t get to earlier in the week. It’s a day of catch up and clean up so that I can truly enjoy the weekend ahead. Because, as I’ve come to realize:

"The world looks a lot nicer with clean windows" ~Grammy

Of course this goes way beyond cleaning windows. I have found that when my space is a mess, my mind quickly follows. It’s not exactly a conscious thing either. It’s waking up to a pile of clothes on the floor and just letting the pile get bigger as I can’t decide what to wear for the day. It’s realizing I forgot to hang that dress back in the closet and throwing it on top of the pile is so much easier than shoving it in my overstuffed closet because it’s late and I want to go to bed. It’s digging through the pile on my desk for that one clipboard with my lesson plan on it that has now gone missing. It’s realizing my water bottle is still waiting to be washed but now I need to leave or I’m going to be late. It’s remembering my bathing suit is still hanging on the line and it’s supposed to rain tonight. All these little things start adding up, making my everyday life feel like more of a mess than it already did. And my life often feels like a bit of a mess. It feels like there’s nothing I can do to clean it either. How do I clean the things I have little or no control over? But I do have control over something.

"My life was a mess... But I could clean my room" ~To All The Boys I've Loved Before

So, I added cleaning to my schedule. Because life is busy, work takes up so much of my time, family takes up the rest, cleaning becomes an afterthought if I don’t add it to the calendar. Sure, it still piles up sometimes, not every Friday offers the time needed to clean up every mess I happen to make over the week, especially if the week involves any sort of costume… but it helps keep it from getting out of control without monopolizing my weekend. I need time to enjoy life too. Life will always be a bit of a mess, there’s no escaping it, but we can always do our best to keep the messes we can clean up under control. And it doesn’t have to feel like such a chore either. Cleaning up can be freeing, rewarding, sometimes it can even be fun.

"Life is a mess and a miracle. So pick up a broom and dance" ~The Rise And Fall Of Mount Majestic

And before you know it, you’ll be able to see the floor, you’ll find that thing you were missing, you’ll remember why those sand toys are on your desk, you’ll see the world through clean windows, and you’ll realize maybe your life isn’t such a mess after all, especially since tomorrow, well, tomorrow it’ll be Saturday.

Little Guy Day

 

Thursday has a lot of meanings for me. It tends to be a pretty heavy workday so I can have a fun weekend, it often meant finding live music or doing some writing, it has a strange connection to food, and for some reason I associate it with pirates… but recently Thursday has become a day for children. And that is what I’ve decided to focus on for this particular day of the week.

When my nephew (son of my “sister by choice”) needed a babysitter, I was hesitant at first, it would mean getting up early and I am certainly not a morning person, but I really only hesitated a second because I love my nephew. So, Thursdays became known as “little guy day” and it’s been that way for a year now.

Watching him grow and turn into his own little person has been such a blessing. I’ve grown to know his quirks and his tells of when he needs a nap. I’ve learned what upsets him and when he’s overwhelmed. I know what brings him joy and I smile because they’re a lot of the same things that make me happy too. Rubber ducks, grilled cheese sandwiches, Irish music. I only see him once, sometimes twice a week, but I realize I’ve had such a big influence on him. Some directly, some because his mother practically grew up at my house and I influenced her. I’ve certainly taught him a lot, but then I realize, he’s had a huge impact on me too.

You can learn a lot from kids. They don’t know what society thinks is normal; all they know is what is normal for them. Imagination is allowed to run wild, naps are the norm for when they’re grumpy and need a break, cuddling a stuffed animal or wanting their mom is an acceptable method of soothing. They don’t know if it’s weird to get super excited over a tiny thing. They don’t know if it’s weird to want to see the same movie or listen to the same book 100 times in a row. They don’t know if it’s weird that they liked this food yesterday but today it just doesn’t taste good. And we just roll with it as adults because; they’re kids, that’s what they do. What if, instead of giving them a pass because they’re kids, we gave it to them simply because they’re human? And what if we gave a pass to each other because, kid or adult, we’re all human?

Humans are allowed to get excited about things that seem boring or insignificant to others. We’re allowed to enjoy the same thing over and over because it brings us comfort. We are allowed to change our minds about what foods we like. We are allowed to take a nap or a break when we get overwhelmed. We’re allowed to want our mom or a favorite stuffed animal when we’re upset. We’re even allowed to play. Right…?

We should be allowed all these things, but I’ve found it’s not the case for adults. We’re told to grow up or get over it. We’re allowed to do all these things as kids, it becomes our norm, part of our identity, but then we’re expected to just grow out of it. Well, maybe we shouldn’t. Maybe we’d all be a little happier if we held onto that childhood innocence, creativity, and determination. Maybe if we held onto what made being a kid great, we’d be better adults.

My cousin is starting school this fall, and she’ll be getting off the bus at my house once a week. Ironically, it happens to also be Thursdays. So, my Thursdays are now officially for the kids in my life. I will watch them grow, teach them new things, let them teach me things, I will smile as they find joy in discovering this world we live in, and I will encourage my inner child to make an appearance more often. I hope you have some kids in your life who remind you being “childish” isn’t always a bad thing. I hope you have days full of pirate ships and superheroes and watching Disney movies cuddled on the couch, whether there are kids involved or not. I, for one, will be looking forward to all the adventures to come in my “little guy days” and now my “little girl days” otherwise known as Thursdays.

Day Of Rest

 

The world is spinning, work refuses to take a break, family and friends need attention, suddenly it feels like the week is 8 days long and not one of them is free. No matter who you are, what your job is, or what your life is like, no one can maintain that. Everyone needs a day of rest. Even God, who created the entire universe and every little thing in it, had a day of rest and asks us to do the same. The way our society is set up makes this complicated, but even more important. For most, this day of rest has been Sunday. That’s just become the expectation. But what if you work on Sundays? What if Sunday is when you have to take care of all the housework? What if Sunday is just not a day you can rest? But did you ever stop to consider that day of rest doesn’t have to be a Sunday? Maybe for you, like me, it’s on a Wednesday.

I never intended for Wednesdays to become what they have. I didn’t set out and say “I will take Wednesdays off” It was never on purpose. But somewhere along the way that’s exactly what happened. My college classes, my work schedule, my body’s natural rhythm just all synchronized to give me Wednesdays off, for several years in a row. So, here we are, with Wednesdays becoming my Day Of Rest.

As I get older and my responsibilities become more and more demanding, I realize my brain is having a hard time keeping up. This has always been the case to some extent. I usually worked my school schedule to give myself an “easy day” where I got to only work on the subject I enjoyed. Or as a teenager and young adult I’d make sure to get my work done, but also balance it with things I wanted to do like play computer games or work on my writing. Without realizing it I was balancing my responsibilities with the breaks I needed. Now, however, in the midst of several jobs and other adult responsibilities, finding that balance without physically putting it on my calendar has become impossible. Even then it’s a challenge.

With more responsibilities comes more possibility for burnout. In my case (autistic, read more about that in previous posts) the possibility and aftermath of reaching that stage is even more severe. I can’t just go on a vacation or have an afternoon off and be ready to go for another month, another week, or even just a day. Depending on how many things are on my plate and how long it’s been since I had a proper break, the length and type of rest needed to function may differ. And if I don’t get it, my brain gets foggy, my body gets slower, my emotions climb to the surface, and once I start to slip into a breakdown there’s no telling when I might be able to function properly again, proving to be no help to anyone until the proper rest is had.

My day of rest usually includes having time totally to myself to rest physically, but also mentally and spiritually. Time to focus on God: read the Bible, pray, and spend time in his presence. Time to focus on my body and its needs: Exercise, being intentional about eating good food and at the right times, waking up and going to bed at my usual times instead of messing with it for the sake of schedule. And focus on things that bring me joy: Writing, organizing things, working on one of many hobbies, spending time in nature. If you know me personally, you would recognize this plan as my daily challenge this year, and you’d be right. I do my best to make each of these things a priority every day, not just on my day of rest, and I encourage you to do the same. However, my day of rest is when I focus solely on these things and nothing else. I give myself time to really get sucked into my different tasks rather than putting my day on a timer.

I know this sounds like an impossible task, finding a day when you can focus solely on yourself, but I promise you it’s worth it. God tells us we should work, and be there for our friends and family, and love strangers and enemies alike, but He also tells us to rest. To take a break from work and other obligations and focus on Him. He doesn’t demand it has to be a Sunday, or a Saturday, or one Tuesday a month. Maybe for you, like me, it’s Wednesday.

Twister Tuesday

 

“One of those ways being to drop him right into a life-threatening situation. Or, as he usually called it, a Tuesday.” ~ Once Upon The End, James Riley

New York State recently had quite the week of Life Threatening Situations. Technically it started on a Wednesday, but for me it started on a Tuesday. We had a string of thunder storms that produced tornadoes. We had several within a 30 mile radius of our house and one only a couple miles away. Our power was out for days, buildings destroyed, businesses closed down and will have to move locations in order to reopen. The states tornado count for the month of July jumped up to 22 which was completely unheard of. We get a bad storm now and then, we’ve had close calls with small tornadoes before, but this was truly bizarre for us.

Thinking back, I have been hit with some rough Tuesdays several weeks in a row this summer. And when the next Tuesday came around and people were still recovering from the storms a week before, I was hit with a new fear of Tuesdays. Were Tuesdays just going to continue throwing me into life-threatening situations? Or at least life-altering ones?

That feeling changed when I met up with my friends that Tuesday night. We talked about what was going on in our lives, we were honest about what was worrying us, we laughed with each other, and most importantly we took a moment to pray. God blessed me with these amazing girls to help me though the storms. He uses the people in my life to keep me safe and sane and I am grateful for that.

I hope God has blessed you with people to help you through your rough days. Someone who will remind you that tomorrow is another day, and that God is in control. My friends reminded me of that on that Tuesday night. I know God is with me always, especially on the life-threatening and life-altering days, or as I usually call it, a Tuesday.