the busyness of it all

There are many things that go on in a house that no one knows about. The house from the exterior may look comfortable and neat, yet inside the walls there are secrets that only those that live in the spaces know. Maybe we are like that, as humans. Maybe we each live in our bodies (houses) and only we know the secrets of our lives...which is just a way of saying that I do not understand this oldest son of mine. The other two have opened up their lives (explicably or inexplicably) and shared themselves, some of their 'secrets' (e.g. concerns) with me. He has not. He is the greatest enigma and all I see are the exterior shots, the messes he leaves in his room, the laundry left in the washer, the trash put out in a bag on the back patio and not placed in the small trash receptacle. While I, his mother, periodically pick up after him, encouraging better behavior in all aspects of cleanliness, in other words, I nag (after a fashion).

And so I go on in the busyness of it all (life, that is). Buoyant and hopeful and wishing that this hope (neatness that is) would confer itself upon this oldest son of mine. It hasn't and there is nothing, it seems, that I can do. We each, and only, can choose our own ways, our own paths and if we choose to hold on to something which is or may be unhealthy for us (we mess up our own houses, and with my oldest son this is quite literal), who can stop us? Free will is ours and sometimes it seems, there is no intervention for life or rather, for the messiness of it all....


"You find yourself refreshed by the prescence of cheerful people. Why not make an honest effort to confer that pleasure on others? Half the battle is gained if you never allow yourself to say anything gloomy." Julia Child.