Compartmentalizing, Or Not

I was browsing through my photography folders tonight, looking for something I hadn’t posted yet, and this image called out to me. I’d like to be able to sort my life into those sturdy old drawers, with their worn paint and mismatched handles. Close everything up in separate compartments, so I could open each drawer at my leisure and work on one thing at a time.

The last three weeks challenged every second I was awake, and most of the ones I managed to close my eyes for as well. Just yesterday I made it over the hump, and instead of being able to dive into a project or finish any number of topics I’ve started writing for this website tonight, I took a few hours to do the laundry that hadn’t been touched since some time before Valentines day instead. I know, try not to fall out of your chair with the excitement.

In the last ten months I’ve gotten used to the normal chaos of my life. The living in the garage part, the cat depositing live mice onto the bed in the middle of the night part, the going straight from the day job to working on the house to updating the website every night part, the aching muscles part, the cooking outside part, the constant layer of dirt under my fingernails part, the anxious hours spent at the laundromat that could be spent tiling the bathroom part, the frantic lunch-hour trips to Lowe’s part. There is no chest of drawers with enough compartments to hold all of it, and most of the time I like it that way. But hoo boy, when life throws a couple of more things at me– unexpected opportunities, or unwanted responsibilities– that’s an extra special kind of chaos that it might take just another day to fully recover from. The laundry may be taken care of, but there’s a small mountain of dishes still calling my name, you know.