Hiding in the Laundry Room

Earlier today I found myself hiding in the laundry room, finishing my breakfast and staring at mountains of Special K all over the floor. Duke, in an effort of self-sufficiency, had attempted to get his own cereal and managed to knock down every box on the shelf. One container popped open, he apologized profusely, and I kicked him out of the room to sit, stare, and attempt to finish my food while it was still hot.

Cereal dust sprinkled the floor, it stuck in corners of boxes, dusted the basket of too-small clothes that were slated for the basement, covered everything. All I could think about was how accurately the mess depicted my life at that moment. Roughly 40% of the box was still sitting in the container. It was seemingly normal, untouched, certainly not sprinkled all over the floor. There are parts of me that have things under control, in order if you will. I get up, get dressed, take care of the babies, everyone is fed, I go to work, etc. But the other part of me, the piles of cereal and dust all over the floor, out of sorts, unorganized, messy, that is the 60%. It’s haphazard, it doesn’t belong, it’s frustrating, annoying, an inconvenience. The 60% was there before COVID-19. It was there before the entire world started to fall apart. Before COVID-19, my world was still slowly coming apart at the seems. Everything was different. Everything IS different.

Now we just experience it all from inside the comfort of our homes. We run into fewer people which means fewer people are there to give sad looks, ask how we’re doing, talk about how unfair it all is.

As we approach my dad’s 4th knee surgery of the year, I can’t help but think about how much it utterly sucks that I have to drop him at the door of the hospital and send him off by himself. No one to be in the waiting room getting updates, no one to visit him in the room afterwards and distract him with riveting conversation, no one there. I get it, obviously. We have to stay safe and healthy and keep those on the front lines safe, and healthy. It can still suck.

Before the cereal mess happened this morning and I found myself sitting on a pile of dirty laundry, finishing my breakfast and willing the mess to clean up itself, Theo had smashed an entire bag of skittles against the fridge (his way of telling me he was not satisfied that I wouldn’t let him eat the bag at 10 a.m.) and it burst open, spraying skittles all over the kitchen, entry way, and dining room. He picked up and ultimately ate every single skittle because at that point, the battle was not worth fighting. Before my kitchen was showered with skittles, Grayson had found a neglected bread roll one of his brothers had not finished eating and rubbed it into the ottoman. Tiny flecks of bread were ground into the rug as I attempted to make a cup of coffee. So it wasn’t just the cereal that caused me to hide from my family in the laundry room, begging them to go into any other place in the house so I could have a brief moment of peace. They didn’t by the way, they sat right outside the laundry room door softly knocking and asking if I was done…

Obviously not every day is like this. But most days are not like the millions of posts that flood my social media page each morning of families doing crafts, going on nature walks, learning to speak multiple languages in between violin and piano lessons. Most days involve a series of messes, cleaning up one chaotic adventure after another. They also involve a ton of kisses, snuggles, sweet and gentle moments, in between screeches, wrestling matches, and 240613097 diaper changes. Life is hard. Motherhood is hard. Quarantine due to COVID-19 is frustrating. Grief is hard. Trying to keep it all together is nearly impossible on the good days. But I am finding that maybe, part of the beauty of having nowhere to go, means having a little more time to think about how to fill up that cereal box. Maybe I can focus on what’s in the box more than what’s all over the floor.

To the village of people who are out there rooting for us, keeping us in your thoughts and prayers, sending us love and good vibes in whatever way you can, thank you. We feel it and we need you. Sometimes we’re sitting alone, hiding in the laundry room, and we need you to remind us that it’s going to be okay. To those of you that are sitting in your own respective pile of dirty laundry, I see you. You are not alone. Everyone keeps saying “we’re all in this together”, but the reality is, we always have been, we just weren’t paying attention. We’re all in this life together. So be gentle, be kind, to others and to yourself. Take a minute to hide when you need to, and then come back out and join your people.

-T-