I left the grocery store with enough bags threaded on my arm that I should have kept the grocery cart, but I didn’t want the indecision of leaving the cart next to the car or being a good citizen and pushing it back to the store.
I managed to wrestle the key in my pocket to open the trunk and set the bags inside, realizing that the clerk had inserted a refrigerated item in each plastic bag, so I’d have to unload everything once I got home, instead of leaving a few things for later.
Leaving a few things for later seemed to be my current status. I’d left a lot of things for later including keeping a tidy house. I was usually messy but now there was dirt in the corners and the wood floor could stand a good sweeping and mopping.
Housework made me think of Aunt Cheyenne. She had a system I could not follow but made perfect sense to her and must have made sense to her home because it was always tidy. She did a lot of things right. She used to brag that she’d never been late to work a day in her life. I was usually not on time. We had different stresses though. She had worked in a dry cleaner mending clothes with small, neat stitches, and running the ironing machine to place precise, clean seams. I, on the other hand, worked in high tech and it wasn’t so much getting to work on time that was the issue, as much as leaving at a decent hour. Work life now flowed into home life and never ebbed.
I slammed the trunk close and slung into the driver’s seat, careful to look for someone behind me who might be backing out at the same time. I only had to make that mistake once. I eased out of the parking space and nosed the car toward home. The car did a little jig that told me I would have to get it into the shop soon, that like other things had been delegated to “things for later” status. Might be surprised when the debt collector for “things for later” came to call.
Why did I always think things could wait?
At the house, I unloaded the car with only a quick glance at the carefully manicured lawn and flower beds. After stuffing things away, and on a whim, I plopped on the floor cross legged and stared at my space.
What was it that I needed to go from here to there, from where I was to where I wanted to be? To go from the past – where I seemed to be stuck, to the present. I crinkled my brow.
My mind wandered.
I picked myself up and thought, “I’ll ponder that later.”
