Bedspreads and Cold Coffee

This morning I woke up late, stumbled around the house trying to clean the kitchen, pay all the bills and get ready for work while drinking cold coffee and willing myself to have a good day. Throwing back the last of the lukewarm caffeine, I gritted my teeth clenching my moral determination, "I will get through this Thursday with a happy heart." To be honest, this week I have had the mirror of self analysis held up to me more than I would like- the refining process of marriage...so necessary and yet so aggravating.

My husband and I had one of our "talks". These usually revolve around my unhappiness in my artistic ambitions and his imploring that I try to find the good in the small things, the life we have now. I even get headaches now when we revisit this conversation because we have pounded this stretch of mental pavement into gravel.

Why is it that those who love us the most have the highest potential to make us the most mad and the most motivated? In a very kind way, he basically told me that I have been wearing my emotions on my sleeve this week- which I am always blithely unaware of. I imagine my emotions look something like a straggly patch of flimsy denim, worn down and faded- a dream soaked, reality marred square.

In this particular conversation, part 312 of a running series, he reminded me to zoom out a little. Of course I rolled my eyes, and rolled over. Thinking to myself, "Why don't you just zoom out!" After I let the rub of his comments subside, I tuned back in. He went on to explain that life is not dictated by our own scale, or own perception of our life's importance. The legacy and goals that we want to achieve does not affect the work God does but rather he is the One who gives us what we are supposed to do. So I was thinking, even now? Even at my day job? Even when I live such a small existence?

He said, I want you to be happy living our simple life. Which made me very sad to hear, since I truly do enjoy our life together. Very much so. Our love is the best thing in my life. I am just afraid I am not living up to my potential. Which is such a weird thing to say, as if someone has etched one of those height charts on the wall and I am just shy of where this hypothetical "living up to" stretches.  He summed up the conversation with this, "He hasn't forgotten about you."

And that's when I lost it. Because some days, that's exactly what it feels like. Forgotten.

I was thinking this conversation over as I was scurrying around this morning. I headed into the bedroom to make the bed. Everyday that I don't make the bed I feel like I am a little less prepared for the day. 

Messing with the sheets and pulling them this way and that, our cat Mojo sprung into action. He thinks that I am making the bed just so that he can dash back and forth on the bedspread, pulling strands of it loose with his nails  as he maniacally tries to catch the wind that comes when I lift the comforter.

I talk to my cat, quite a bit. Ahem. I know...

 

So I say, " Mojo, it's not all about you!"

I  shoo him off the bed, finger a few of the loose strands in frustration and pull the edges of the bedspread down, put the pillows in place, smooth out the wrinkles, and let my own words sink in.

If Mojo wouldn't run back and forth across the bed while I am trying to make it, it would take a lot less time to get the task done, and there would be a lot less loose strings. All because he wants to chase something he can never catch, my bedspread is on a steady path to it's rapid decline (when it becomes nothing but a big wad of silk strands and cat hair). Also his nonsensical darting makes the task of getting the bed made efficiently near impossible.

I am sure you are getting the parallelism.

Maybe if I just stood still, hung out around the sidelines of the "life bed" that is being made all around me, I wouldn't get so caught up in the loose ends and make so many mistakes. Maybe I wouldn't continually chase after something that isn't ever going to get caught.

And so, this is what I have to say about this: Life isn't perfect, but I love the bed I've made.