Control

Richard and my sister Ruth just took the kids to the pool for the afternoon. At first I was feeling happy to be left alone - free reign of the TV and all - but then I noticed that the dishes weren't done. And laundry needs to be done. And the bathroom has dirt all over it from the kids coming in from outside and being sent straight to the bathroom to wash up. And it all started bugging me. I just want to get up and clean! Cleaning when the house is empty is almost pleasant sometimes. And I know that if I leave all these things alone, Ruth will come home and do them all for us. And that just makes me want to get up and do them more because Ruth has done a LOT for our family lately. Grrr. It's frustrating. Frustrating in a way that I'm not sure anybody can understand unless they've been there. Some day I'll look back on this post and think, "Man, if Ruth came over right now I sure wouldn't complain about her doing my laundry and cleaning my house while I lay around!" But after four weeks of being totally dependent on others, this is really tiresome.

I've come to realize that part of my frustration comes from feeling like things are out of control. Not just out of MY control - but not controlled at all. The laundry gets done when somebody comes over to help, but nobody is constantly aware of the laundry needs. The dishes get done daily, but the big pots pile up because nobody does a seriously thorough deep cleaning. Things are getting done, but they're not really "under control". Ya know? So Richard and I had a long talk about those kinds of things. Because I've been assuming that he would slowly take over being in control of those things. And he's been assuming that I'm still in control of them because they are getting done when people come over. What he and I concluded is that we need new systems. New systems that are just set so regularly that they never seem to be out of control. Like Monday is vacuuming, Tuesday is laundry, Wednesday is deep cleaning the kitchen, etc. And that if we have that kind of a system, even though I'm not the one doing any of it, I can still feel in control by making sure that thing gets done that day - whether that means telling Richard to do it or the random person who comes by to help. We really hope this will help. This coming week my sister-in-law, Stacy, is coming for a week. She and I will work on getting that system, and several others, working.

With all this planning and system-implementing going on, I am starting to feel a little better about life. But I still wish I could just get up and do things the way I usually would!