Just Write ~ the 15th

December 19, 2011

{Note: Just Write will take a break next week, December 27 and return on January 3rd}

 

Ryan is way on the other side of the house and I can hear him on the phone. He’s a loud-talker, my husband. He’s right by the boys’ room but they don’t wake easily at all. Mike and Molly is on and Elsie is sleeping, too. We can’t loud-talk near her though, she’s not such a solid sleeper yet. Maybe she won’t ever be, like her mother.

There are little piles everywhere. Teacher gifts, bows and wrapping, bags with gifts in them and then the usual suspects, like bills and other grown-up paperwork. Sometimes I look around and wonder who all of this belongs to because I don’t very often feel like a grown up. 36 and a half years have gone by and still I’m a kid.

I was driving to another store tonight, looking for one particular thing and I turned the car by a house I always notice. It’s the one that I’ve taken a photo of Miles and Asher in front of the last two Halloweens. It’s always so festively decorated and the lady that lives there reminds me so much of an old client of mine, from back when I was a social worker. It’s been almost ten years since I’ve seen her. I wondered tonight if she’s still alive, that client. She was so thin, didn’t like to eat, and she wore the same wool black outfit year-round. It could be ninety degrees and humid and she’d still sweat it out and even slept in it. The skirt and blouse with a blazer. She was scared and hallucinating, smelly and suicidal. And I could make her smile and sometimes even leave the house. The house that was falling apart all around her while she shuffled and sighed.

And now here I am, not a social worker but a worker in my sleeping house with all of its piles and in my clean change of clothes. I am this grown up girl here with memories of old careers and the people who I miss in them. Aside from my children, they were the ones that taught me the most about grace in the small things, like smiles and getting out of the house.

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This is the 15th installment of Just Write, an exercise in free writing your ordinary and extraordinary moments. {Please see the details here.}  I would love to read your freely written words so join me and link up below. You can add the url of your post at any time. Just be sure it’s a link to your Just Write post, not to your main page. There are really no rules, besides Just Write! (Then link back to this post in your post so people know where to go if they’d like to join in.) (Any links not following those two guidelines will be deleted.) 

Also. Please take a moment to visit someone else who has linked up! It’s a really good way to meet new writers and get inspired by the meaning behind their moments. Word?

 

{ 13 comments }

debi9kids December 19, 2011 at 11:30 pm

the way you just described your home… it’s my “home” as well (or, my mom’s home, as that’s where we’re currently living)
My “past” life as a aide to adults with autism taught me SO much more for my own life than I ever thought possible at the time. Funny how those “lessons” re-appear and things that I thought were super stressful at the time… not so much.
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Adventures In Babywearing December 19, 2011 at 11:30 pm

So wild because tonight I wrapped presents while watching Mike and Molly for the first time.

Steph
Adventures In Babywearing recently posted..What do you call cheese that isn’t yours?*

Galit Breen December 19, 2011 at 11:41 pm

I love the way that you weave past and present, heart and mind.
xo
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Sarah@EmergingMummy December 20, 2011 at 9:34 am

There are days when the biggest accomplishment is getting out of the house. Beautiful work, as always, Heather. Thank you for hosting.
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molly December 20, 2011 at 11:00 am

You were a social worker? I think I can see that. Especially when you so quickly ran to my aid and you didn’t even know me!

I work in hospice so I can definitely relate to the memory of your client. I walk into the most heartbreaking situations every single day. Not sure it’s right for a chronically depressed person to see so many messes every day. But they teach me so much about my own messes.

Kristin December 20, 2011 at 1:08 pm

Oh the piles. I have so many of them that I yell at my husband not to touch them, lest he screw them up.

I know exactly what you mean about not often feeling like a grown-up. I wonder at times how it’s possible that I’m almost 40 and have 4 kids. Where did the time go?
Kristin recently posted..Just Write

nicole December 20, 2011 at 2:07 pm

I was talking to my BIL and his wife about this the other day–how we still feel like kids, just faking the grownup thing. So I wonder if it is generational? Are our lives so easy (relatively speaking of course) that we somehow don’t feel like we are living an authentic adulthood? I think not, but I sometimes wonder. I mean, we were watching old videos and there are my husband’s parents, the same age we are now, and they looked and talked and acted like grownups. But we don’t feel like we look and talk and act that way, at least some of the time. It’s weird.

(Now I feel like I just wrote my own blog post in your comments instead of on my blog. Oops.)

Merry Christmas!
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Andrea December 20, 2011 at 5:40 pm

This is my first time lining up with you – I read about your linky all the time over at Galit’s place. I love it and I’m glad I found you, especially with this post. I, too, am (=was) a social worker. I haven’t worked since I relocated South in 2006. I became a mom shortly after and have been home w/my own child but I miss the children I worked with. My extras. My other kids. I hope to someday get back into it, and I know what it’s like to feel like you’ve made a change in someone’s life. It’s incredible. Those memories keep me strong sometimes. I hope that they do the same for you. Thanks for sharing and I’m glad to get to know you! Happy holidays!
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robin December 20, 2011 at 6:10 pm

Love that we can find grace from all around us. This post made me reminisce about my past….god and bad! :)
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Krishann December 21, 2011 at 12:20 am

I’m a social worker too and through it have learned a lot about what you so eloquently referred to as grace is the small things. Ah yes grace. So thankful for that. And mercy.

Thank you.
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Jody December 21, 2011 at 12:22 pm

Most days, I don’t feel grown-up at all. In my 20’s I used to think there was this big, defining moment of adulthood – like graduating college or getting married. But then, I did all that and I still felt the same. I think I will still feel the same when I’m 90! Just older… :)
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hotel July 2, 2014 at 11:15 am

Your style is so unique compared to other folks I have read stuff from.
Thank you for posting when you’ve got the opportunity,
Guess I’ll just bookmark this page.
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