OYM Day 28: Vacuum Equals Mama

I have nothing to write about today, so this is going to be a journal entry of sorts. I mean, I have plenty to write about. PLENTY. But tapping into that well daily is proving to feel like knife meets toaster.

It’s not easy for me to make up stories, either, but I’d like to try. I’d like to write a ghost story, too. Not a thriller or a murder mystery, but a real ghost story. The kind you read around a fire or share with your girlfriends when you’re high as a kite in Joshua Tree. Those kind. I love those kind.

None of its easy, though. I can’t seem to wrap my head around everything that’s going on right now and if I had to try, the image that comes to mind is one of those lawn sprinklers that click-click-clicks as it makes its way around 360 degrees, and then sputters like “fuuuuuuuck this” and ends up right back where it started. And so on and so on… I just don’t have it in me. This also means I don’t have it in me to crack jokes or be “smart”. I only have it in me to avoid the mirror and pretend my falling apart insides don’t match my falling apart outsides. But they do.

I obsessively vacuumed the living room rug twice today, doubling my daily once over. My daughter sings a song about the alphabet. For the letter A we sing apple, and she pretends to take a bite. For the letter V we sing vacuum, and she yells “MAMA!” How sad is that?

I thought about birthdays and anniversaries and the upcoming summer. I scrubbed the sink to a pearly white.

I thought about my husband and heard his fingers padding the keyboard in the office. Is he holding up okay through all of this? I fluffed the pillows for our non-existent guests and chopped them down the middle, the little slip of aggression, delectable.

It’s more than a feeling of control, or helplessness, or purpose. And I can’t quite put my finger on it, but it sure is sitting there, isn’t it? In fact, I think it’s looking right at me.

I called my grandmother today. She said she likely wouldn’t be able to fly out and see me this year. I told her probably not, but she was welcome to come out and stay with us as soon as it’s safe. She paused and said “there may not be a next year for me…this thing is robbing me of the precious time I have left.”

I swept the floor and rearranged the bowl of fruit on the counter.