I had company last week and as one does I cleaned house before they got here. Now as many of you know my house is typically pretty clean compared to a lot of places, but I still feel the need to do extra cleaning if other people are going to be staying here. And so I did a last minute sweep of the bedrooms and the bathrooms and tidied up the whole place. I was feeling pretty fat and sassy about the whole thing.
Until...
Well I realized that we are single towel multiple use people so that means I don't have a closet full of bath towels. I have seven. Which is more than enough for the two of us and even more than enough when C comes to stay. But if any of my guests were multiple towel single use people I was going to need to do laundry every day to make sure there were clean towels. Turned out fine, everyone was like us. So I'm good.
Until...
The three people using one bathroom upstairs made the logical conclusion that adding the bathroom downstairs would make getting ready to go much faster. Now, the toilet, sink and floors in the downstairs bathroom are regularly cleaned and had been cleaned before their visit but the shower stall in the back...well...I'm sure I cleaned it when the construction was finished and I must have cleaned it after C and his friends all stayed here when Brent and I went to Disneyland...last April. My horror when I saw Matt walking out of the bathroom and realizing that he could very well have been met with a puff of dust when he opened the shower door was real. Then to find out that Steph had used it first without her glasses so she wouldn't have seen the dirt anyway made me laugh. And cringe.
I just didn't think about it. We never use it. C never uses it. We have a great tub and shower upstairs so the little closet shower is just a thing that I know is there, but not really because I don't pay attention to it. Having guests brought it back to the forefront of my mind and believe me, I cleaned it today and it will get a good rinsing down every few weeks from here on out.
Sometimes we need something to jolt us out of our routines. Something that shows us what we haven't been paying attention to. My other guest and I talked about that a lot. What it takes to shake you from your rut. To actually change your behavior. Bigger things than cleaning a bathroom.
Skippy has had a tumultuous few years with her health. Mentally and physically she hit the wall. Breast cancer will do that to you. Especially being diagnosed at the same age your mother had been, who, oh by the way, died when the cancer came back. It was a wall to run in to full force. Stopped her. And she took the opportunity to make HUGE changes in her life. She looked at what was and wasn't working and decided that she was going to pay attention. It's a big nasty way to get a wake up call, and it would be best for other people who need to make changes to not have to hit that wall first, but for her, the cancer did have a good side.
She's changed her way of eating. She quit smoking. She got unstuck in her feelings about where she was living. She has always traveled but she started doing even more. Smaller trips to go along with the big ones. More things that bring her joy. More things that are good for her. Healthier in body and in mind. Which is great because two years and five surgeries should lead to better things not worse.
We talked about things like eating well. We both avoid added sugar, though she is MUCH better about it than I am. No weekend treats for her. And we talked about how we should have done more earlier but neither of us did until faced with things that forced our hands health wise. It's really kind of crazy. So many of us know what we should be doing, I mean does anyone out there think smoking is actually a good thing to do? But we still don't take care of ourselves the way we should.
We smoke, we drink too much, we eat foods that are not good for us, we don't workout, we don't expand our minds to learn new things, we get in a rut and ignore things that are right in front of us. Like a bathroom shower that hasn't be cleaned in a year. A nagging health issue that we ignore. Or a belief that somehow we are going to be fine even with the smoking and drinking and eating poorly. That somehow we are going to be the little old lady on the news talking about drinking straight vodka all day and smoking Cuban cigars has been the secret to living to be 100.
We won't be.
Look at your figurative bathroom showers today. What is working in your life? What isn't? What do you know you should change but haven't? What do you think you could change to make your life better, healthier, mentally as well as physically? Then don't ignore them any more. Make some changes. Grab life with both hands and live it well. Healthy. Strong. With no dust in your corners.
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