Empty Nest

My to-do list for yesterday consisted of the following:

1. Figure out the day of the week
2. Reschedule dental apt
3. Be brilliant writerly-wise

Guess which didn’t get done?

It’s a tad chaotic here on the prairie right now. DH (dear husband) is recovered from his broken/sprained ankle, sustained on Labor Day weekend. However, I am once again booted, due to surgery on my ankle. Between spouse, my mother, and me we function like a well-oiled domestic machine.

Except when we don’t.

Like when one of us is out of commission.

My mother/writing partner folds all the laundry, God bless her a thousand times over. Two autumns ago she had hand surgery. I nearly wept with relief when she could go back to sorting socks.

Husband cooks. 

I however, clean. I take a lot of ribbing from friends, but few things give me more satisfaction (domestically) than scrubbing toilets or dusting. Cutting clutter gives me enormous satisfaction. I find the older I get, the more I need order in my surroundings.

When I can remember where I am and what day it is….

This fall with two graduations looming (older son from college in December; younger son from high school in May) I keep telling myself I’ll miss the mess because it means they’ll be gone.

Technically, though, the big guy is the biggest clutter culprit …. not planning on him going anywhere soon. The absent-minded college professor stereotype exists for a reason.

But he does cook.

And we won’t really have an empty nest because my mom lives with us and has for the last 13 years.

She is an organizational whiz, able to eyeball a room and know exactly how to pick up and arrange things perfectly in intelligent systems

Me, I handle maintenance.

Lately I’ve been trying to envision life without clutter, without children in the house. Since my early days of motherhood when I held my firstborn six-pound son in my arms I knew if I did my job as a mother ‘right’ he would eventually leave me. Same with his little brother. The goal is and always has been to launch those baby birds out of the nest.

So I’m going to enjoy all the twigs and pieces of yarn scattered about while I can.