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kitewithfishMy back hurts and my eyes will not unsquint on command anymore. The soapy water is cooling on my stomach where it was pressed against the sink, and I now get to sit down, blessedly, but the situation is quite frankly less than ideal. I hate doing dishes before bed.
Evening is the time for rest, for the burdens of the day to be put momentarily aside in favor of company. Doing dishes is a solitary task- I frankly shoo away people who want to come and visit with me while I'm doing the dishes. It's rough soapy honest work that lends itself to introspection and a good tune. It is not time for chatting. Evening is time for chatting, and I've just done the dishes in the evening for the first time in several years. The contrast has left me dissatisfied and chafed and a bit damp around the waist.
The Gentleman and I have reached a new compact- chores have been allotted and a timeline assigned, which means both our work for this week has just escalated, as well as for next week, and the week after that, and the week after that. It's daunting to have this all stretched out in front of me, ad infinitum, but that's the thing about marriages. There are times when they stretch out in front of you and point towards as much infinity as either of you are going to get, and that's kind of a dark place, to be honest.
To see your life measured out in fortnightly floor washes, knowing that at some point, you won't be washing the same floor anymore, and eventually, you won't be keeping track of the stretch on GoogleDocs anymore, that first the place where you both live will change around you and the tools you use to measure it will shift and stretch as well around the little patch of eternity that you both have laid out in front of you. Because the compact between you will outlast the buildings around you, the cells in your hand, the knees you cushion on a folded towel against the hard floor, will outlast eventually both of you in all your components, and everything in you except the will to keep it going.
It's the humble eternity that measures out the end of you and me and both of us together. Someday we will both be dust, and in the time remaining to us, we'll commit to spending some of it on our knees washing the floor, making the place we live in now a fit place.
Evening is the time for rest, for the burdens of the day to be put momentarily aside in favor of company. Doing dishes is a solitary task- I frankly shoo away people who want to come and visit with me while I'm doing the dishes. It's rough soapy honest work that lends itself to introspection and a good tune. It is not time for chatting. Evening is time for chatting, and I've just done the dishes in the evening for the first time in several years. The contrast has left me dissatisfied and chafed and a bit damp around the waist.
The Gentleman and I have reached a new compact- chores have been allotted and a timeline assigned, which means both our work for this week has just escalated, as well as for next week, and the week after that, and the week after that. It's daunting to have this all stretched out in front of me, ad infinitum, but that's the thing about marriages. There are times when they stretch out in front of you and point towards as much infinity as either of you are going to get, and that's kind of a dark place, to be honest.
To see your life measured out in fortnightly floor washes, knowing that at some point, you won't be washing the same floor anymore, and eventually, you won't be keeping track of the stretch on GoogleDocs anymore, that first the place where you both live will change around you and the tools you use to measure it will shift and stretch as well around the little patch of eternity that you both have laid out in front of you. Because the compact between you will outlast the buildings around you, the cells in your hand, the knees you cushion on a folded towel against the hard floor, will outlast eventually both of you in all your components, and everything in you except the will to keep it going.
It's the humble eternity that measures out the end of you and me and both of us together. Someday we will both be dust, and in the time remaining to us, we'll commit to spending some of it on our knees washing the floor, making the place we live in now a fit place.
