Everything That's Not Nailed Down

Today is not a good day. I am anxious and unhappy, and so I do what I always do when I'm this way. That thing that makes my husband happy and other women jealous. That's right: I clean.

Bruno calls it an "everything that's not nailed down" day, meaning I seek to wash, scrub and otherwise control everything that's not nailed down, sometimes to disastrous effect. This time there weren't too many casualties, just a dark sweater that got washed with a light colored, fuzzy blanket and is now irreparably covered with light colored fuzz. Ah well: all the in the name of restoring Lisa's sanity.

Our days have been getting easier. We can now laugh without guilt. We are choosing to do more things, to engage more in every day life. I went to my first audition out here, I was invigorated by it, and, what's more, I was OK about that. I've started to read again, and, most of the time, I actually answer the phone when it rings.

But today, I feel right back at the beginning. I am furious at the injustice of life. I am pissed off about my loss. I miss my children, I want them right here where I can hold them and raise them. I feel uncertain about the future, robbed of hope, angry about the past and the present. Wronged, with no one to strike out against.

And so I clean. I scrub the kitchen floor, finding the rhythm, enjoying the exertion in an almost masochistic way. I am moving my body in punishing ways, and am thus somehow punishing the universe for treating me and my boys so badly. I am creating order out of chaos: I declare this dirt will not remain on this floor. I proclaim these smells will not remain in these clothes. I will wield the power of machines, of products, of tools and of my own hands and I will make order out of all this mess.

I sit back, glazed in sweat, looking at my sparkling handiwork, and realize it is not enough. It is not nearly enough. And I start to sob.

There. That was what I was after, after all.