Clean Up in Aisle 7

Hi. My name is Andrea.

And I would like to know who to call to get admitted to a resort spa for exhaustion. Because it seems like that's a thing now, and maybe you need loads of cash to get in — but seriously, do I just need to pass out in a grocery store or something? Because I can do that. I can do that with gusto. I'll take down the whole cereal end cap if need be.

I just moved last week, which could also be read as, last week, I dumped all of my crap into various corners of a city view apartment. Now I am left to empty boxes, put away mugs, and sit on the floor crying over all the notes my mom has sent to me through the years that I just found at the bottom of my office paper bin.

Anyway, I digress.

Sometimes life just hands you a bunch of stuff. Not lemons. Not a glass of lemonade. Just a handful of things that you're not sure what to do with.

Work. Relationships. Children. Plans gone awry. Bills that seem daunting. Tasks that feel impossible. A little girl who wants to eat an entire half of a watermelon.

I'm sitting here in my new apartment, with a stack of books next to me, a jar of random things like skeleton keys, a purple lighter and a clothes pin, and my coffee is nearly cold. Life is just so quickly happening with things being thrown at me and I feel like I'm tossing most of it into a mason jar. My heart is a lot like that miscellaneous collection. I know I have enough of me for some of these things, but not all of them. I know they all have a place, and in time, will find a place, but for now I'm handing out clothes pins and red ribbons to my world and hoping they're worth something.

This is the last year of my 20s. At 29, I am finding that everything I hoped life would hand me by this point has come and gone. I have fragments of some dreams, some hopes passed on in my rearview mirror, and some things I've just boxed up and placed on the shelf until another day. I am tired, and yet grateful. I'm starting to realize that we never might actually feel like we've arrived or accomplished anything. This whole elusive idea of climbing a ladder, achieving the dream, marking out our territories with flags and picket fences is ridiculous. And I'd go so far as to say it's damaging.

The whole idea that there is something to achieve here on earth is absurd. I mean, besides true love (not the selfish kind, but the kind that spills from the depths of an unconditional grace) and authenticity and brokenness (not self-indulgent messes, but the kind of brokenness that invites healing). And then the great Redemption story. (That's the story. Not my passport pages or bank account. ) I mean, what is our struggle for if not for one of those things?

I don't want to live in a state of perpetually trying to figure it all out. At what point do I tell myself it's ok to stop stressing out and to just sit cross-legged in the middle of my bedroom floor and listen to Johnny Cash? It's ok to not have to always be making lemonade, or fixing, solving, planning, and going. 

Sometimes the best parts of my day are when I'm eating a bowl of Lucky Charms and my 3 year old is telling me about how she wished on a star for a magic pony.  Sometimes the best thing I can do is not have a freak out moment in aisle 7, but rather give myself the chance to breathe and push off all of the daunting expectations. 

And sometimes I just need a resort spa. Is that too much to ask?