Clearing Away the Straws

I find that when I have days like yesterday--days in which it feels as if it's all too much--it's the small things that really seem as if they will break me.

The straws, if you will.

In this scenario, I am the camel.

During yesterday morning's little pity party, it was spoons.

We had no clean spoons. This is a sure indicator of sickness in the house, what with all the tea drinking and soft-food eating. So every time I would open up the silverware drawer to get a spoon for administering yet another spoonful of honey to a coughing child, I would confront the devastating fact that we had no clean spoons.

And then my dramatic internal monologue would go something like this, "WHY IS MY LIFE SO TERRIBLE? WHY IS EVERYTHING SO HARD? WHY CAN'T I JUST FIND A CLEAN SPOON?" (All caps in my head, yes.)

Luckily, I am old enough to have learned a few things in my time on this Earth (38 years brings a lot of wisdom, obviously). And one of the things I have learned to do is, first, stop thinking in all caps. That never helps anything. And second, to ask myself, "What can I do right now, this very second, to make things better?"

The answer is almost always something very small. I can pick up the living room, because the fireman's hat in the middle of the floor has been tripping me up every time I go to the kitchen. I can take Poppy and Jack outside, because everyone's always happier outside.

Or, as I did yesterday, I can wash some spoons.

So I did. I washed some mugs, too, while I was at it, because those were all dirty too. And just like that, one small straw that was threatening to crush me had been removed and things seemed more manageable.

Obviously there are many large things that have yet to be resolved (I see you, disorganized closets* that need to be packed up) and other things that I just can't do anything about (sick children waking up over and over), but clean spoons are a start.

* Funny thing: After years of wishing for closets while living at closet-less Blackrock, I am now of the opinion that closets are nothing but a black hole for disorganized junk and I don't actually like them much.