Miss Havisham, Jr.
I’ve fooled some people into thinking I’ve been handling widowhood marvelously. They haven’t seen my house or my book-keeping.
This is how people become hermits. They are so overwhelmed with the pile-up of daily chores and duties that things just seem to fall into ruin, and they are embarrassed to invite anyone over. Preparing for company… where do I even begin? It doesn’t happen on purpose and it doesn’t even involve consciously digging a hole for yourself. Everything just keeps settling around you like a never-ending snowfall, and one day you discover its well over your head and there is no sign of the shovel.
I really just want to do creative things, but most of those aren’t getting done, either, because how can I give myself permission to take the time for those when I’m sitting in a pile of aging chores and unpleasant paperwork? I don’t even want to talk to my children on the phone because they want me to give them a progress report….
Each day is the first day of the rest of your life. And each day has been the day that I put off forming that International Procrastinators’ Club. Yes, I can even procrastinate procrastination!
Today wasn’t the first day that I had this thought (I do spend A LOT of time “thinking”), but I’ve been avoiding walking around my house barefoot because my hardwood floors feel like I’ve been walking around on a sandy beach. I can joke about my dust-bunnies turning into dust-squirrels with long waving tails sticking out from behind my display cabinets, but today I fulfilled a promise to myself to make visible headway inside my house.
Oh yes, I did! After I loaded the dishwasher for the second time, this time with dishes emptied from the refrigerator containing unrecognizable former food, I did a couple of loads of laundry, mostly dog towels from Perkins’s almost daily shampoos. Then, I found my Endust, emptied the collection bin of my handy-dandy Shark Vacuum Cleaner, and began tackling the unintended mohair carpets collecting on the edges of the rooms and furnishings. I didn’t even attempt deep cleaning, just making a dent so I could reward myself for making an undeniably visible difference!
That’s when I thought of Miss Havisham from Charles Dickens’s “Great Expectations.” She was the old lady wandering around her mansion wearing her torn and soiled wedding gown decades after being jilted, living among the long-petrified wedding cake and unopened wedding gifts festooned with decades-old cobwebs. Did I really want to be that woman? In the first place, I haven’t the fortune to allow myself that life. In the second place… YUCK!
I am happy to report that although I only attacked 1/3 of the house (it’s kind of big) at a surface level, I have dusted and vacuumed enough fur-laced cobwebs and stardust to knit a companion Boykin Spaniel for Perkins and two fully grown capybaras.
Of course, I had to interrupt my progress to write this self-congratulatory report. No, you still cannot “drop by” because, you know, MY standards are not up to yours, and even my own haven’t yet been met. Hey! But I’m on a roll! This is good!
How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. (I don’t want to eat an elephant, they are too wonderful, social, and some enjoy music and can paint pictures – which is what I should be doing!)