My son told me today that Star War's was 40 years old. His fourteen year old face, animated with a smirk that made his dimples come out, beamed when he said, "Mom, Star Wars is 40 years old, so that makes you older than Star Wars."
I'm not sure why this is funny.
But he also thinks that being taller than his mom, body odor, and wearing underwear five days in a row is funny.
Sitting down at the computer to begin a blog post, I let my eyes wander a bit while thinking how I should start. I promised a Creative Writing Accountability group that I would produce a post a week. I didn't say anything about a well thought out essay of awesomeness written with the potential of a Huff Post spotlight - which would of course send me into overnight viral fame lasting long enough for me to notice and wonder how I can capitalize on that fame into something lucrative - like a children's picture book deal, before fizzling into nothing because I'm really still a mommy/nanny blogger with a dream and a penchant for gesso and splashes of color and run-on sentences.
As my eyes wander up to the ceiling, I see these reddish splatters of what might be spaghetti sauce. On the ceiling. Which I can not touch without the help of a chair and my tippy toe's. I hope it is spaghetti sauce.
I really hope it is spaghetti sauce.
The fourteen year old I was telling you about, he thinks all kids of weird stuff is funny. Like nose bleeds, which were getting so bad that we had to take him to the doctor. I would not put it past him to have done something to cause actual blood spatter across the ceiling.
If you have any experience with teen age boys you understand.
There is a spatter of spaghetti sauce on my ceiling and I don't know how long it's been there. At least a couple of weeks - I can't remember the last time we had any spaghetti.
I really should stop what I am doing and clean it up. I really should. It's what mom's do, right? Isn't the reason women are exhausted, stressed and overwhelmed. Because they see the little messes that come out of no where. Little messes that no one else sees. And no one cleans. They work hard all day, make all the meals, do all the cleaning, make sure everyone is doing what they should be doing, they take it all on and manage it to the best of their abilities. They clean up the messes no one makes and no one sees. Sometimes in the business of it all, the most important things in life fall through the cracks. Things like self care, relationship investment or a dream so important that on their death bed they will be regretting having not spent more time and effort reaching for that dream.
The Deathbed Moment of Regrets, of total honesty. Yeah. About that.
When my grandmother was in hospice in her home, beginning the process of dying, she looked down the hallway at my children playing with some blocks and said. "You need to clean that mess up."
She was a wonderful woman. I admire her greatly an miss her still. I don't think she had ever heard the concept of self care.
But I have.
I sat in the theater during the first run of Star Wars. And I raised babies to the voice of Oprah.
I know what self care is.
Unless I get someone else to climb on a chair - that sauce will probably be there until we paint over it. I know what I want to spend my time doing. A perfectly kept home is not a priority. Not even a perfectly sanitary home.
But getting this blog post written for my accountability group is something I will not regret.
What are your priorities? What will they mean to you on your death bed? Is old spaghetti sauce on my ceiling any less gross than the spray of a bad nose bleed?
