A week or so ago, I knocked a stack of glass votive candle holders out of a cabinet. They shattered with epic velocity and shards of glass were everywhere. While vacuuming up the mess, my vaccum got jammed. I didn’t have time to mess with unjamming and managed to sweep up what remained of the glass. It was a situation passably managed & I left the vacuum staged near my kitchen- like a low-priority patient in an understaffed ER- to be dealt with in order of urgency.
Today, I finally had enough bandwidth to look at the wounded warrior of domestic convenience and, wouldn’t you know, it took ten minutes to get the vacuum working order. I just had to pull off the long hose and fish out the mangled mess of glass wrapped with dog fur. With a few jabs and shakes, I fixed my vacuum! It worked again – I double tested it by sucking a whole new batch of dog fur. Pleased with myself, I was.
But with that fixed, now the a/c in my truck is more balmy than cold. I’ve been dreading this moment, but getting by and by with an occasional coolant charge that isn’t hard to perform. Now, however, it’s more mechanical, becoming another thing I’ll need to handle.
The only thing I’m certain of, as I age, is that there will always be something to keep up or repair or retire & replace.
Anyone who ever tells me “everything is great” is fully suspect. I once had a friend who answered, “How’s life?” with, “Oh my life is great, for a kid in Haiti, so I can’t complain.” What he was saying is it’s all perspective and you can be “blessed,” have all the general necessities covered and even some luxuries, if you’re lucky, but the reality is life, & everything in it, is in a stage of decay. Nothing will ever remain perfect.
I try to listen for those perfect moments and find them outside of all the Life Things that will inevitably break down and fuck up and cause us angst, but some days it’s harder than others. Some days boundaries are crossed or you just can’t seem to get traction in life and on those days that things aren’t great and there’s no reason to say “everything is fine.” Some days everything is shit and that’s just the angle you gotta build from- those are the days your attitude will make or break you. On those days, it doesn’t mean you don’t show up, but also don’t be shy to say, “Fuck it. This is all I got.” Here I am, fighting the good fight- sometimes with a drier tank.
Spread Your Dreams 