Sometimes When You Least Expect It

I’m tired. I think this was one of my most productive days of sorting out and cleaning I’ve had in a year. It’s amazing how having a job motivates me to get far more done; unemployment only seemed to motivate me to ride my bike more, which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Today, my to-do list said, "Clean Iz's room." I had cleaned Iz’s entire room only a few weeks ago. And, I cannot tell a lie about my mental state during the cleaning process.

As I picked up, threw out, and organized from American Girl to Zhu-Zhu pet, I might have muttered negative thoughts once or twice. I think I probably said, “Isabelle! Isabelle! Isssssssssaaabeelllllllllllllle!” when I found some badly soiled underwear shoved in the back of a drawer. Then perhaps I said, “This room will be a mess in a week; I’m sure of it!” after I straightened and organized every book on the shelf in her closet.

Anyway, when I went in, I couldn’t see the floor. When I came out, I could see the floor. Most notably, I could see my reflection in Iz’s Barbie doll mirror that had been previously smeared with every lipstick and lip gloss known to Izkind. Ta da!



At the end of two hours, I had a clean room, a white trash bag stuffed full of junk (though Iz might not see it that way, so shhhh!), and a pile of school papers. As I began to sort through the papers, I came across one that stopped me dead in my sorting tracks. I smiled.

It was a picture of us.



And above the picture was written:



Sometimes when you least expect it, you’re reminded, “That’s why I’m here.”

After cleaning the house, sorting through the boxes I took home from work when I got laid off, doing the dishes, cleaning off and dusting my desk and book shelves, trying to rid my shower of this strange orange mold that had appeared in a corner, and organizing a small corner of the attic, I declared myself done at 6pm. I probably would have done a few more things; however, my lower-back screamed, “Go on without me. Ha-ha! You can’t!”

I was sitting at my desk trying to do one last task, which was making Tunabreath a Billie Holiday CD. Nathan approached to plug his laptop via Ethernet cable into the router. I said, “Oh, Nathan. Can you just pound my lower back for a bit? It’s killing me.”

Peeved that Dell made me reset his laptop to its factory settings, thereby wiping out all his games, IM, and all the other “crap” he had on it, he was not in a good mood. It had irked me, too, because after three calls about the issue, Dell finally said, “Oh, we’ll just send you a new wireless card.” Nathan swooped down, like he was going to help his Mom out, and then he faked to the left and plugged the Ethernet cable in saying, “I need a car, a girlfriend, and good grades, but you don’t see me whining.”

Sometimes when you least expect it, you’re reminded that despite the fact that you have a stellar 17-year-old son, he is indeed still a 17-year-old. ♥