Thursday, February 12, 2009

A boring life

In 2005, I was living in Northern Virginia, a mom working part time as a speech language pathologist. We had been in Virginia for about 2 years, and our lives had settled, after a rough first year, into a humming rhythym. In fact, it was downright boring.

I commented, lamented, even about this to my husband. We were...grownups. Mortgage paying, homeowning, parenting type grownups. It was a good life. But it felt small. And dull.

In early 2006, I was diagnosed with PKD. Life was boring no longer. And boring looked really good.

It's now 2009, three years and 1 month after my initial diagnosis. We've settled into what a therapist friend of mine called "the new normal". My appointments with my nephrologist, so new and scary at first, are now little more than routine. My renal ultrasounds, so enlightening and horrifying, are now just an inconvenience. And taking daily meds doesn't throw me nearly as much as it did. The new normal indeed.

It's almost boring.

I'm a bit of a Facebook junkie, and although I like connecting with old friends and seeing pictures of past lives, sometimes it makes me depressed, because lots of times I see status updates about cruises, and vacations, and new babies, and exciting adventures. It makes me life seem very dull by comparison. Boring.

I lamented, nay, practically shouted, about our sad and dull lives tonight to my husband, particularly in light of the mound of dinner dishes and never ending stream of laundry that faced me with my better half out of town for the weekend. How I would love to ditch it all and go head for something better, greener pastures, a place without laundry. Because laundry is so BORING!

And then I remembered what happened last time I said, out loud, that my life was boring. I thought of a friend, who's mother is battling a new diagnosis of breast cancer, and how she would probably give a whole lot to go back to boring. Instead, it's going to cost her a breast and her hair for 6 months to get back to boring, but we're all praying she does. Suddenly, boring doesn't seem so bad.

I know people who find great amounts of joy in the every day things. Honor in the ordinary. Sometimes, I'm really good at this, and the power of being a mother and a homemaker overwhelms me, takes my breath away, makes me gasp out loud at the beauty of it all. And sometimes, I find myself crying over my kitchen sink.

So I resolve to be satisfied with boring. With stability, with routine, with a humming rhythym. Because if you complain about boring, you'll never know what you'll get instead.

6 comments:

Rob Monroe said...

I'm with you - every time that I start to get too comfortable something happens. Whenever people ask me how I'm doing my typical response is "not sure, we'll see how the rest of the day goes." It's not what people are expecting, but everysingletime that I have felt really great about my health going into a nephrologist appointment I get hit with something.

It is hard, though, to not want more. We haven't vacationed since our honeymoon, but that's okay. I've decided that as long as we're happy - we're good.

Here's to the boring!

Anonymous said...

I'm not sure boring is boring. But boring is good, definitely. Beauty in tiny details.

The Wiz said...

Oh, come on. You'd rather be executed than bored, at least there's some drama in it.

I, on the other hand, will take boring any day of the week.

Come visit me.

Anonymous said...

Hi Heather, This is Rick Hoyt. I want to send you an email but don't have your email address. Please email me at rick.hoyt@yahoo.com I can't wait to hear from you.

girlsgoneveggie said...

I sometimes have to be reminded of the luxury of being bored. I also loved you line about honor in the ordinary. Thanks, nice post.

CailinMarie said...

Hey lady. I had no idea that you had PKD (not that I was around much when we were "in preschool together) and I adore blogs and blogging so it was your Facebook status that tipped me off. I am so with you on "boring." Tim hates it when the quartely alumni news comes out from college... he feels it coming. So and so is in law school and so and so got promoted and so and so is going to wherever and... it has gotten better. "They" are all finally reporting things like having kids and getting married and becoming boring... my sister once said "we did all the cool stuff before we turned 25! We haven't been out of the country for years!"
I hope your life is long and boring and there are many many many years of dishes ahead for you.