A Fifty-something’s Unstructured Day Off

It’s the day after Thanksgiving and I don’t have to work today. My kids are at their dad’s house. I refuse to go anywhere near a retail establishment with the possible exception of my wine store, therefore I have time to get a lot of things done around the house. Here’s how my day is going so far:

I wake up at 7:30 but laze around in bed watching Good Morning America until 8:30, long enough for my dog to do in the house what she should have done outside but I was too lazy to get up and let her out.

I roll out of bed and shuffle to the kitchen in my robe and slippers, take the carpet cleaning solution from under the sink and pre-treat the carpet. I put water in the coffee maker, then notice the bucket of water that’s sitting on the counter that I need to add to the fish tank, so I go add the water to the fish tank which is next to the couch in the family room and I notice that my son has left a pile of string cheese wrappers on the coffee table.

I pick up the wrappers and take them to the garbage can in the kitchen, which is next to the empty dog food bowl. I get the Tupperware dog food container out of the cabinet and it’s empty too. In the garage, I keep a big bag of dog food from which I refill the Tupperware container so I go out to the garage (luckily the garage door is closed and the neighbors can’t see me in my robe and slippers) and I remember that I’d left a bag of clothes in the car that a friend had given me for my son. I set down the dog food container and get the bag of clothes out of the car and take them to my son’s room where I notice that the smell of teenage boy is quite overpowering so I set down the bag of clothes and strip the olfactory-offending sheets off of his bed.

I take the sheets down to the basement and put them in the washing machine and start it up and grab the sweaters I’d left on the drying rack last week and I take them upstairs to the dining room table where I fold laundry but my daughter’s art projects are covering the table, so I put the sweaters on the chair and I pile up the art projects and carry them up to her bedroom where I discover all of the juice glasses and spoons that have been missing for weeks. 

I gather up the dirty dishes and carry them down to the kitchen and put them in the dishwasher that, thankfully, is close to the coffeepot and I remember that I’d started making coffee an hour earlier. This reminds me that I had also pre-treated the carpet, so I abandon the coffee-making again and go get the carpet cleaner and fill the tank with hot water and while I’m cleaning the spot that needed to be cleaned, I notice that the rest of the carpet is looking dingy, so I continue to clean the rest of the carpet in the room and while I’m slowly pushing and pulling the carpet shampooer across the floor I realize I haven’t written a blog post this week, so I turn off the machine and go sit down at my computer, but my reading glasses aren’t on the top of my head like they usually are.

My collection of reading glasses have a tendency to all end up in one area of the house, so now I just have to figure out where that is. The repository is usually on my nightstand, so I go back upstairs to my bedroom. I walk into to my bedroom and can’t remember what I was looking for so I go back to the computer and smack my forehead because when I look at the blurry screen I immediately remember why I had just gone up to my bedroom.

I also notice there is a pair of reading glasses on the table next to my computer.

And now it’s almost noon and I’m still in my robe and slippers with a no-caffeine headache and there’s a pile of sweaters that I’m either going to have to steam or put back in the washer and the dog is sitting next to her empty dog dish staring at me.

But I finished writing my blog post. 

You can follow me on Twitter: @ceceliahalbert

Bouncing Back

I’ve been through some difficult situations in my life and I’ve always bounced back. I always know I’ll bounce back and that makes it easier to get through whatever the difficulty is, but I have to say that I wasn’t so sure about my resiliency this last time around. I will admit to a few moments…  maybe more than a few…  where I wondered if I’d ever bounce again.

I trudged from my car to the front doors of my school one morning a couple of weeks ago after spending the evening at the hospital and the early morning talking to doctors and a couple of boys who had arrived very early were kicking a deflated playground ball against the wall of the school. Instead of bouncing back, the ball thudded against the wall and dropped to the ground. The boys would go and retrieve the ball and kick it again…  it thudded and dropped.

I was that ball. I was deflated and empty and thudding along.

I kept hoping that the one person I always thought would be there for me would know I was in trouble and he would find me, but he didn’t. I didn’t call him because I was afraid he wouldn’t come even if I called and I would have been more deflated than I already was and who needs that?

And then the tornado hit.  That’s not a metaphor for anything. I’m talking about a real tornado. An EF-4… in November. It barreled through the heart of my hometown and wiped almost 400 houses right off the face of the planet, one of them being the house I grew up in. 

I became the person that I am today in Washington, Illinois.  I don’t live in there anymore but my sister and my aunts and uncles and cousins do. I’m not really a Chicago girl. I will never be a suburban soccer mom. At my core I’m a Midwestern farm girl and that tornado nearly knocked the remaining air right out of me.

Last night I drove to Washington, my car loaded with donations from my friends and colleagues and strangers in my new community. I drove by myself, wanting that one person in the seat next to me. My heart was in my throat the entire way there and I wanted him to be with me, but he wasn’t.

I followed a parade of heavy equipment into town. Bright construction lights all over town lit up the night sky and my heart pounded. I’d seen the destruction on television, but I didn’t know what to expect when I saw it with my own eyes.

The reality was that it was horrible. I don’t have words to describe it. Some people used words like ‘war zone,’ but no… it wasn’t a war zone. It didn’t look like a bomb went off. I just don’t have words for it.

But then…  I saw the people. People working together to clear debris. People holding up other people. People coming from everywhere to help. One man drove from New Orleans and cooked jambalya for a thousand people. People brought trucks and tents and tarps and shovels and rakes and garbage bags and water and strong backs and big hearts.

I dropped off the donations to some very grateful volunteers, told them I’d be back in a few days, and I got back in my car and drove home.

And tonight I’m bouncing off the walls.

You can follow me on Twitter: @ceceliahalbert. 

Marriage Advice from the Unsuccessful

My life has been more than a little trying lately, so I decided maybe I'd take on someone else's issues this week instead of writing about my own. 

Disclaimer: I've been married and divorced twice, so take the following with a salt lick.

Tonight I read a lovely blog post from a recently divorced man. In his essay, he gave twenty stellar pieces of marital advice to the still-married men of the world. He said he learned them too late.

Well.     Yes…   too late.

It’s very easy to say things like “always choose love,” and “marriage isn’t about happily ever after. It’s about work,” and “be vulnerable,” and “give her space,” etc., etc., etc…   WHEN YOU’RE NOT MARRIED.

 

It’s very easy to figure out what you should’ve been doing all along when it’s after the fact. It’s lovely to be brilliant and insightful when it doesn’t matter anymore.

His wife probably wished he would have been so brilliant while he was still her husband.

Or maybe not.

We don’t know his ex-wife. Maybe he snores a lot, or chews with his mouth open, or can’t balance a checkbook to save his life, or maybe she has a boyfriend and she was happy to get rid of him. Who knows?

They’re nice pieces of advice, but really - I’m sure if she wanted to stay married to him, she probably tried to tell him all of those lovely things and he didn’t listen, so maybe the number one thing at the top of his list should have been:

LISTEN TO YOUR SPOUSE.

Not one of his twenty tips for a successful marriage mentioned listening.

Huh.

Maybe he’ll have to get married and divorced again to learn that lesson.

You can follow me on Twitter: @CeceliaHalbert

The Top 10 List: Things I’ve Learned This Week

1.     I’ve learned that what’s important in life can be distilled down to one thing, and that one thing is LOVE.

2.     I’ve learned that people can surprise you. Support can come from unexpected places and sometimes the expected places turn up empty.

3.     I’ve learned that every conversation has a subtext.

4.     I’ve learned that the most beautiful sound in the world is laughter.

5.     I’ve learned that human beings are resilient and able to find untold measures of strength in times of crisis.

6.     I’ve learned that a glass of wine at the end of the day is what heaven tastes like.

7.     I’ve learned that people with the most intelligence are often the quietest. (I really wanted to say the opposite of that, but I’m trying to be positive.)

8.     I’ve learned that it’s only money, even though more of it would be nice.

9.     I’ve learned that hugs are the reason spirit takes human form.

10. I’ve learned that if all else fails, remember lesson #1.

You can follow me on Twitter: @CeceliaHalbert