At 817am, I heard my phone vibrating on my bedside table. I rolled over, saw it was Sophia, debated if it was an urgent call or not. . . not likely. Not at 817am on a Sunday. I rolled back over and went back to sleep.
9am came and I decided I should probably get up and get moving. I had yardwork planned for the day, and while it wasn’t supposed to be stupid hot today, I wanted to get it over with. I like to get my shit done on Sunday and be able to go to bed at a reasonable time so I start my week off at least semi-rested. I dressed, picked up my bedroom, vacuumed, and started to clean the bathroom before I made an attempt to call Sophia back. I like to make sure I’m fully awake before I interact with other humans. I’m not a nice human until I’ve had coffee and gathered my thoughts for the day. Of course there are exceptions to every rule, but I know myself well enough to know that for the most part, I’m a better person about an hour after I’ve rolled out of bed.
It was a quiet day for me – I thoroughly cleaned out Scarlett, busting out the shop vac I had bought last Christmas finally and putting it together and using it. I wiped everything down inside the vehicle, including the chocolate that some hooligan had placed in the door – I had to scrape it out, so that was fun. I then put a new air freshener in her and took her through the car wash. I spent the rest of my day weeding some of my garden beds, planted the few remaining flowers I had left to plant, as well as the two rose bushes I bought earlier in the week. I drove out to get Chase from Emma, as they had been on a mini-vacation for several days, and I missed my littlest hooligan. I took time to walk around and see what was growing, and what was blooming. Everything is looking wonderful, minus the troublesome weeds growing in my vegetable gardens. Now that I have everything planted I suppose I can concentrate more on the weeding. I despise weeding though, so I’ll probably find excuses not to. I had full intentions of mowing the grass with Matthew today, but as I made dinner I found myself pretty fucking exhausted. So the grass will wait for another day.
Around noon I glanced at the quote of the day, and was happy that it was one I could relate to. It’s honestly something that I have found I do without thought, it’s just in my nature.
“I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I’ll go to it laughing.” – Herman Melville, Moby Dick
I honestly think that this laughing in the face of adversity thing came from dad. I noticed it when I was in my twenties, that any time I called him with a problem he would joke about it and make me laugh, and somehow the problem seemed lighter.
Now I find myself doing it, too. Most commonly at work – any time there’s a situation that I can’t quite wrap my head around I just shake my head and laugh. Once I make light of it, I can address it. I do it in my every day home life, too. Today while trying to clean the chocolate out of the small door handle in the back seat of Scarlett, I realized that a rag and cleaner wasn’t going to do the job. I wandered into the garage, looking for a screwdriver. Unable to find one, I grabbed the first thing that looked like it may do the job – a large screw from the basketball hoop I had inadvertently wrecked a couple years ago. And I stood in my driveway, with this screw, scrapping melted chocolate out of my door handle, and laughed. How utterly ridiculous must I have looked? I was absolutely annoyed at the situation, but what was I really going to do about it? I mean, besides the obvious, which is not let the little hooligan have candy in my car anymore. Otherwise, he wasn’t there to clean it, and I didn’t want to wait for him to get home to do it, and I didn’t have anything else to scrape the melted chocolate with so. . .
You can’t take life too seriously. You’ll give yourself anxiety attacks and end up in a padded room. I mean, at least, I think I would anyway.
I’m not saying to laugh at the really serious shit. That’s not feasible. But the little dumb shit that occurs on a day to day basis? . . .
I went for a walk on the nature trails at work the other day and my hair fell flat. I went into the bathroom afterwards, and noticed how horrible it looked, and laughed, and threw it up in hair clip. It still looked rough, but what was I actually going to do about it at 11am, when I had to work until 6pm? Why stress over it?
I was in the garden earlier, kneeling in front of a bed pulling weeds. I leaned back to sit on my heels and was stabbed in the ass with a large piece of mulch. I thought I had been stung or bitten, jumped, screamed, swore. . . and realizing what had actually happened, laughed. I mean, luckily no one was there to witness what happened, but I could only imagine how I had looked.
I let the bathtub get absolutely grimy before I decided to clean it this morning, and knew it was my own fault for letting it go for so long. I chuckled to myself because the cause was likely a combination of Chase and my gardening the last few weeks. So I sprayed cleaner and scrubbed at the grime, opening the small window so I didn’t choke on the fumes from said cleaner. . . what else was I going to do?
I mean, these are just examples of small inconveniences, they are minor annoyances, and my own fault. No sense getting bent out of shape about it. I threw my hair up after it fell flat, I was more careful about where I was sitting in the garden, I’ll try to clean the tub more often in this warmer weather. . . all I can do is laugh and move on. None of it is worth stressing about. None of it is going to matter in five minutes, let alone five days or five years. In five years I will likely have forgotten these minor inconveniences. So why stress out about them now, in the moment? I’ll save the fucks I give for more important things.
Even some more serious matters bear a joke and a shrug. You just shouldn’t go around stressed about everything all the damn time. If there isn’t an immediate solution, you have no choice but to wait for the solution. I’ve been the person pacing a room, anxious about the outcome. I still do a lot of overthinking and stressing about shit I can’t change. But I also tell jokes, and try to make light of it. And the more I joke, the lighter the burden seems.
That’s what I’ve got on today’s quote. Don’t take the little shit so seriously.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the old drafts I found of my first ‘book’, and wonder if it’s decent enough to salvage. Maybe I’ll work on that for a little while before I go out and water the gardens with Chaser. I don’t know how good sixteen year old me was at telling a story, so we’ll see. Maybe I’ll share it here if I find it to be halfway decent.
I think I see an early bedtime in my future today – it’s been a long and wonderful extended weekend. I also see a nice relaxing bath in my newly clean tub, so I can soak all the dirt and grime off of me. I’m concluding my vacation tomorrow with a girls day. It’s not something I participate in often, but after four days of barely brushing my hair, boycotting makeup and not doing much of anything but digging in the dirt, I think I’ll dress nice, do my hair and makeup, and do some shopping – and enjoy it.
Happy Sunday, folks. Take time to enjoy life, and laugh at the ridiculous shit it puts us through. I’ve found it goes much smoother that way.
So, This is Real Life 