A little while ago a light went on in my parents' car that read MAINT REQ'D. I was not very happy to see that light. Especially after the window got smashed and one of the tires went completely flat as a pancake on Christmas Day. Two days after I got TWO flats on my Subaru. In minus-30 weather. Late at night.
So that light, the one that reads MAINT REQ'D, is the last thing I need. And the way it stares at me, bright and expectant, every time I turn the car on? It's like a metaphor or something. Maintenance required, man. For everything. Taxes, bills, laundry, dishes, cars, condos, relationships. Everything in life requires maintenance and, right now, it effin' bugs me.
Because right now seems to be one of those bizarre periods of total convergence when everything that could possibly need maintenance needs maintenance RIGHT THIS SECOND. My parents' car is one thing...three things if you count the tire, the window and that godforsaken light. Plus the Subaru.
Then there's the bounced rent cheque I have to chase down from my parents' tenant. The leaking something in my condo, which has led to water damage. The broken fireplace in Canmore that's taken two months (so far) to get fixed. The library books. The fact that I'm three years behind on taxes and really need to renegotiate my cell phone plan. The mountain of laundry that refuses to wash itself. The soap scum in the shower hardening into sedimentary rock as I write. My office that gets scarier and scarier every day with murderous dust bunnies and teetering piles of paper. The sister that's not talking to me. The 95-year-old grandfather waiting for my call.
WTF? Where's the off-switch. The parachute? The escape hatch onto the deserted island?
Look. I know you have all this stuff, too. Except for maybe the taxes. I know that's life. I also know I'm taking care of my parents' life as well as my own so instead of one life's worth of maintenance there's two or three. But maybe this is just foreshadowing. I mean, what about the people with three kids and aging parents? How the hell do they get everything done?
This is the kind of stuff Some People are awesome at. They have their taxes filed on January 2nd and are never late with their Blockbuster videos. Their sweaters never have stains on them and their cars are annoyingly clean. I hate Some People.
And if MAINT REQ'D is a metaphor, maybe this is one of those Big Lessons I have to learn in life, along with my people-pleasing problem and tendency towards negativity. Maybe this will galvanize me to become rich ASAP so I can get a personal assistant and dump all this crap on them. Or maybe I'd like to cancel my Entropy account with the Bank of the Universe. But right now, right at this moment when the phone won't stop ringing and – oh, now I'm in charge of booking doctor's appointments for Gramps, which reminds me I haven't been to the dentist in a dog's age – I just really wish I was Victoria Beckham.
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2 comments:
Oh my precious lord! This wonderful post is like reading my life.
Three years behind on taxes? Check. (It's not just you. Writer's curse.) Mountain of laundry? Check. Scary office filled with scary piles of paper? Check and check. And what's with that perpetual pile of laundry?! Check-a-roonie!
Plus my own idiosyncratic tasks, such as the artwork -- and frames -- that sat in my living room for 2 months (count 'em!) before I finally put them together with each other. Oh, and then I had to, you know, *hang them*.
"Maintenance required" indeed! Fantastic metaphor.
I also hate the Some People. But I comfort myself with the thought that their Well-Ordered Lives are not the result of superior character or better flossing habits. Nope, they're clearly the reflection of pristine inner lives uncluttered by the rampant creativity of too many ideas colliding with each other and exploding into new worlds, every single one of which demands intimate exploration.
Vivid inner lives tend to produce messy exterior lives. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!
Lovely to meet you Miss Melanie Jones. I was introduced to you by the lovely and Sparkle-icious Miss Shea McGuier. You are as wonderful as she said.
Deborah ;)
So...forgive me at the outset -and I'm only writing this to you as maybe a bit of a wake up call - so take it as you might, but it comes from the heart and I wouldn't say it unless you knew that it came from a good place - not a place of malice.
I am currently dealing with a father who has no bladder, prostate, or lymph nodes in his nether regions and the added risk that they didn't get all the cancer on the first swing through...my mother is currently in ICU at Foothills hospital suffering from "God only knows what" - it started with a cough and ended up with DTs so bad that it has necessitated her being heavily sedated and intubated- she's got fecal material showing up in her catheter and the quick and dirty diagnosis is "sepsis"...which means they haven't got a foggy clue as to what's going on with her.
I have a sister who has undergone yet ANOTHER arthroscopic surgery to her otherwise arthritic knee.
So, when your biggest worry is the rent cheque that has bounced or the laundry that refuses to do itself...be comforted in the fact that at least you "can" do those things...or that you have the ability to correct other things...'cause once you eff up your health...you're pretty much screwed.
Love ya babe!!!
Hugs,
Kirsten
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