Food for Thought

I’m pretty much a failure lately. It’s okay. It happens. Life has mountains and valleys, and I’m stuck on a muddy dirt road somewhere. I’ve done more wrong than right lately. I feel like crap all the time, and, for some reason, people have taken to telling me I look like crap all the time. I generally try to mumble an apology in reply, but I haven’t worked out how to eloquently say, “Sorry I look like hell. It’s not the look I was going for.”

And I have excuses for this. Some of them are even valid. It doesn’t matter, though. Time is fleeting, and I’m quite unintentionally making a mess of this time of my life.

Please don’t think I’m saying this to make you feel sorry for me. I imagine most of us have been stuck on the muddy dirt road of life before, spinning our wheels until things dry up. I can guarantee you that anyone who has a kid who is nearing graduation, one in Pull-Ups, and a middle child with the mouth of a sailor has certainly set up residence on the muddy road a time or two before.

Let me offer you my life in a nutshell:

• Tyler won’t spend every waking minute with me, because he wants to spend time with “his people” before he graduates, and I’m having no luck convincing him I’m his people.
• Ava is teaching Andrew parlor tricks, the newest of which goes something like this: “Andrew, what do you want to be when you grow up?” And then that sweet baby looks his ten-year-old sister dead in the eyes and says, “Black.”
• No one has seen Xay since we started building a house in March. Of 2018.

Each day I wake up with grand plans, hoping that today will be the day I’ll have my stuff together. I have no intentions of being a Pinterest mom, but I do pray on the daily I’ll find a clean bra. And, on Sunday evening, the clouds parted. For a second I could see a route out of the mud.

I had been painting at the new house, and Xay, who was working alongside me, said, “What’s for dinner?”

This is a particularly odd question, because my husband, wisely, generally refuses to eat anything I cook. But that day, I took it as a challenge. I’d go home and cook a meal, we’d set up a plastic table and gather some lawns chairs. We were going to eat a family meal in the new house. It’d be a nice break for Xay from working on the new abode, and it’d be the first family meal we’d had together in ages. It was a golden vision, and I was going to be the one to bring it to life.

When I got home, I cooked hamburgers. I grilled hot dogs. I took French fries out of the freezer and stuck them in the oven. I even remembered to pack condiments and plates. Ava dug out quarters, and we filled a small cooler with sodas and waters from a vending machine in town. We loaded up the van with dinner and started on the fifteen-minute journey to the new home.

When we got to the new house, Tyler and his girlfriend helped us unload dinner to the table they’d set up in the midst of construction chaos in the living room. We unfolded lawn chairs, passed out plates and drinks, and placated Andrew by giving him way too many pickles.

Weather-wise, it was a perfect day. The sun was setting. We opened doors and windows and blinds and enjoyed the breeze that wafted through the house and the smell of springtime in the evening.

Xay cleaned his hands of grout and took a seat at the table.

Soon Tyler was offering hot dogs and hamburgers, and I was passing out cheese. Ava grabbed some fries, and ketchup and mayo were being passed around the table. It looked like the end scene of a movie about family, one where the camera pulls away and a softening filter somehow heightens the happiness. I was smiling, and that felt nice. Xay opened a small Pyrex dish and helped himself to a slice of tomato. Then he picked up the glassware holding lettuce and said, “Why did you bring shredded cabbage?”

Cabbage.

Y’all, I was so close.

But I’m still in the mud.