That's All

When one works two very public jobs that each have weekly—sometimes daily—deadlines to meet, the private things in her life—like cleaning her car and room—sometimes fall by the waste-side.

Such is the reason that I spent around 15 hours cleaning my room this weekend. It was full of un-put-away clothes from last week and stuff that had been gathering from my car for the past couple of months. I’m pretty sure I had at least ten paper purple Hallmark bags full of gifts to sort through and a couple of other bags of random stuff. When I brought home a new Vera Bradley travel duffel bag the other night, my mom said, “Dee. You didn’t need another bag.” I just smiled and thought, “Yes. Yes, mom, I did. Because all of my other bags were occupied and I really didn’t want another purple paper Hallmark bag.”

“And just what was in all of those purple paper Hallmark bags?” you ask.

Gifts.
Some gifts purchased for specific people.
Some gifts purchased because I knew that one day I’d find someone to give them, too.
Some gifts purchased simply because I liked them.

So my job this weekend, after putting away my clothes, was to unpack those gifts and either prepare them for immediate give-away or find somewhere to store them until Christmas. In order to do the latter, I had to make storage space…which added a few hours to the cleaning process…because things got much-much worse in my room before they got better…which…they finally did get better. Thankfully.

I discovered something sad during the unpacking process, though: one of the gifts I was most excited about giving was broken. Evidently, I left the bag in the car for too long and stacked too much stuff on top of it too many times for the mug not to break. A glass picture frame broke as well.

The mug that broke was part of a series called “That’s All.” I bought this particular mug for one of my friends who has been fighting cancer for the past couple of years. The mug said: “You’re the strongest person I know. That’s all.”

Initially, when I realized that the mug was cracked, I was pretty upset. But I almost immediately had this thought: Even those of us who appear to have it all together have cracks. Even the strongest of us have weaknesses. This will not be a drinking mug. But it will be a pretty awesome object lesson.

And that it is, friends.

In so many ways.