I opened the refrigerator door to put away things and I realized that my fridge was stacked with all the leftovers of the week and needed to be cleaned out. It happens every week and I find some interesting things my family has kept for one reason or another. Included in the treasures there are half empty plastic Starbucks cups, pieces of some kind of dessert in a Styrofoam box, and today I found half a baked potato that I’m sure someone intended to come back and get but forgot all about it. As I cleaned it all out so I could start all over again, I smiled. It makes me happy that my “kids” are around to leave bits of food, or a stray shoe where it doesn’t belong, unfolded clothes in the laundry room and the list goes on and on. I have realized something that my mother never caught hold of, most women of her generation never did either and to me that is just sad.
This house seldom gets quiet enough to think! Usually there are drums pounding out new beats, dogs barking, televisions blaring, computers on, people looking for those misplaced clothes I was talking about earlier so that when there is a sudden quietness, it is so loud you have to sit up and notice! That happened to me this evening, for a moment you can almost hear the noise and you’re waiting for a door to be slammed, when it doesn’t happen you take a long breath and say “Thanks!” I found a notebook where I had written about the deafening silence that the absence of an 8-year-old boy in the house could bring. I was in a particularly sad mood when I wrote it, as it was my son’s first trip away from me, with his dad. He had never spent the night away and as much as I had complained about the crazy music of the Nintendo, having to lower the toilet seat, getting up at night for “one more drink of water and good night kiss”, when he was gone it was too much. Having a child is like wearing your heart on the outside of you where you can’t protect it the way you would like.
We kind of roll along, life happens, we are in school wanting to be out, we are single wanting to be married, we are married wanting to be single, we want babies, want them to get old enough to feed themselves, old enough to go to school, you go to all the ball games, take pictures of Prom dates, want them to old enough to be trusted behind the wheel of the car alone. What is the latest fad in Christmas toys, is it Transformers? Batman or Superman suits? Best friends, heartbreaks, car wrecks, and then, suddenly, one is married with two children of her own; the other is a man, married six years, and soon to be the dad of twin boys! Wow what a ride!
I used to tell my children that life is like a Ferris Wheel at the Fair. There are people getting on and off all the time. While it is stopped letting some people off and others on, there are other people way up at the top just swinging and looking around, same swinging on the sides and all around except at that one point of entry/exit. While there are babies being born there are people dying. People that are young just waiting for their chance to conquer life, middle aged people who are working and raising children, and then the group that have retired and don’t find much to do that will make their day interesting…just waiting to get off the ride. We all get on and then comes the time to exit.
Yesterday comes suddenly, find someone that needs a little encouragement and try to brighten their day and it will make yours a little brighter too!
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