Rhonda
Several years ago, my daughter and son in law began looking for a home for themselves and their family of three children. They had outgrown their little starter home over the years and with the addition of more children, more toys, and more worldly possessions, the walls started closing in around them. Looking for a new home had become a necessity, not a luxury.
I was single at the time, lived in the home where I had raised my daughter after divorce, and was as settled in as a hibernating bear. My rhythm of days, weeks and months had emerged and there was soon an almost spiritual sense of ease for me there. I knew pretty much where everything was in the home, having lived there so long and it was no feat to lay my hand on anything I needed, even in the attic, within record time if retrieval was required. Since the day I moved in around 1993, the utensil drawer was under the counter where the microwave sat. There was a small junk drawer near the fridge containing a messy mixture of small tools, garage door openers, bits of this and scraps of that, keys that matched “something” and random screws, washers, nuts and bolts in a beat up box. Next to it was a drawer of herb informational manuals, canning books (I had not canned in years by this time), a few old recipes, parts to a Vitamixer used during my catering days, and a manual for a bread machine I no longer owned…but it had good recipes in it, so it made the cut. I will insert here, I no longer cooked to speak of due to my singleness.
Cabinets next to sink were for dinnerware and glasses, and flatware? Underneath that cabinet of course to ease the Thanksgiving and Christmas family gatherings both in the setting of tables, and washing and putting away of the clean dishes afterwards. It had always stayed the same, never varied, for over 20 years. And now I was offering to break the synching of my surroundings and develop a rhythm with 5 other people. I offered the short term solution of helping them liquidate their home, pack up and come live in my home a short time while searching for new digs, and then planned to help them re-establish elsewhere under their own new roof as I went back handily without much interruption to my own years old rhythm. But God had other plans.
My children and grandchildren stayed in my home with me for 4 rather unsynched years. During this time there were many struggles, both concerning the squeezing of bodies into my 1900 square foot home, along with all the possessions necessary to the raising of children and homeschooling, 4 vehicles, tools, lawn care equipment and everything else you can imagine and maneuvering the normal struggles of combining 2 families with different ideas and philosophies of life to a great degree. My daughter, by default, did most of the cooking in that home during their tenure, so she rearranged the kitchen, with my permission of course, to suit her cooking style and needs. With such a large family, preparatory ingredients were crammed into every available space, sippie cups and plastic items replaced my dinnerware, corn flakes and 25 pound bags of organic flour and rice were shoved under the buffet in the kitchen. The laundry room cabinets held an assortment of light bulbs and washing powders and such as always, but also embraced an invasion of back stock of juices, snacks for the allergy-impaired grandchild, and containers of shelf stable soy milk. We worked around a day sleeping Daddy during those years, constantly hushing children, daughter always having to remember to get her clothing and necessities for the day out of the bedroom before Dad went to sleep so as not to disturb him during the day. Little things…all little microscopic things…added up to a big deal if we forgot the pattern of life and neglected to sync up all the players in this drama.
I had my space which included the master bedroom and bath. I sold furniture, downsized what I had and relocated my office there often replete with all kinds of grubby boxes full of trinkets I dragged in daily as I was selling on ebay. I made you tube videos there when day sleeper was up and baby #4 wasn’t asleep (she arrived in the midst of this chaos). The bewitching hour was between 3:30 and 6 when this could take place, but bath time conducted right next to my room for the big kids overlapped this time frame, so that added to the background noise in my videos. I learned to just throw out the disclaimer “my grandchildren live with me, you may hear them” and plow on. I trained my audience as I trained myself, to sync with the current wild rhythm of those living with me.
Somehow during all this turmoil and craziness, we decided we liked living together and began talking about moving to a larger home together if we could locate one with an apartment or mother-in-law’s wing so I could have privacy but we could all be available to each other as needed. We listed my home, and it sold within 3 days, with the stipulation of us clearing out within a 3 week period of time. We had not yet located a new home, although we had looked a bit. Appropriate living conditions were scarce especially in the case of a proposed separate space for me. I saw my many years home going away (I had signed the contract which was a full price offer, a no brainer), we had no interim housing to be found for a family as large as ours, and we had no new place to go. The nomad lifestyle was beginning to look a bit grim. I began to doubt the overall plan and its wisdom. I was frightened by the feelings I was having of my old safe place of life being torn asunder from my control and my spiraling off into the unknown abyss of who knows what. While we were packing for a life change I was beginning to doubt heavily, we all fell sick, one after the other, with a mysterious condition that slammed us to the mat and stopped all movement for days on end. Packing chores were slowed, the two estate sales we had planned were conducted by a sheer miracle in between the sicknesses, son in law could only help on weekends due to his work. We also had a myriad of issues with plumbing, a broken garage door, and car repairs, and I am sure a lot of things that I have just blanked out on now. Looking back I can almost feel the moving anxiety creep up even when I read about that period of time. I felt out of sync, out of touch, and was fast running out of hope. But as with everything else in my life, God had plans to help me adjust and sync to my new normal in spite of my old fear of being out of the control of things. It was a big emotional timeline moment of “let go and let God”, and I had to trust Him with the process.
And when I let go, almost as quietly as a feather on a spring breeze, my soul began to sync with God’s plan, rather than mine. We all began to fall into sync from the oldest down to the baby. We found temporary accommodations at the Hilton. We located our dream home in a 48 hour period of selling my home. Our raw emotions began to heal, and we felt ourselves sync again with each other and our surroundings. We got packed, all things fell into a peaceful place, and now a year later we live in a perfect combination of privacy and easy availability to each other.
Now I spend my days working around GiGi’s bungalow, as the grandchildren dubbed it, or enjoying the playful antics of my grandchildren from the garage window where my business items have been relocated along with my office. The rest of the family lives in the main house and there is no more disturbing the sleep of either the adult or baby who both sleep through the sync of my daughter’s homeschooling and housewifely days around them. There is a peacefulness here, a joy, a thankfulness due to the synching of the souls that came together, pushed through difficulties and came out the other side pretty much unscathed and content.
We all fight God’s path to synching our lives with Him and His choices for us. In our relationships, jobs, or daily decisions, we find ourselves stepping away from our best because we try to control everything. We tether ourselves to what we believe we should be doing rather than deferring to the power of the Savior to give us who and what we need, when we need it. If what we see doesn’t fit the plan we had, we convince ourselves it is not valid, it is a distraction, it is not worthy of contemplation.
But we are so wrong. Divine interruptions sync us to our next moment.
When we see obstacles, God sees opportunities. When we see chaos, God sees comfort. When we see a disruption, God sees our innermost desires fulfilled. I had to allow for the total upheaval of my former life to realize it was no longer working for me, even though I really thought it was. It was all part of the grand plan for the move to be difficult to prepare for, so we could feel confident in the combining of homes and family later. It had to “not feel good” for a while, in order to feel perfect later. Un-synching from old beliefs and thoughts is like childbirth. Much are the pains of the labor, it gets messy, it feels scary and unplanned, and even a bit out of hand and un-synched for a while. But as we let God do His work, and we stay out of the way…the letting go of the ashes of our old life is ultimately and only where the synching beauty of our next journey can begin.
It is 82 degrees here in the South today, so my daughter piled all four grandlittles into the Mommy wagon and headed for the zoo. They homeschool, so you can do that. Work sheets came out as soon as they buckled in and math, language will be accomplished on the way to the zoo, then maybe Shakespeare by audio on the way home. Home education is all about working with what you have, when you have. In the end, homeschoolers are by far more socially adjusted in most cases having their experiences shared by people of all ages, and academically they give any institution a run for their money with results due to the one-on-one time and investment the parent/teacher is willing to make coupled with the way the student is taught in the way he or she needs to learn and not “by the book”.
The Memphis Zoo has changed a lot since I was a child. I have photos of myself sitting on the concrete animals outside of the rhino area, very low fences surrounding the exhibits that could easily be stepped over and conquered by any inquisitive 3 year old. The caged animals like lions and monkeys participated with their ticket paying captors, peering queerly as we pitched popcorn and other approved goodies into the cages, we in turn watching them sniff and eventually devour our offerings. Often you would see one or more of the animals in cages lumber past, never acknowledging the crowds, the food, nor the clamor for their attention. It was as if they had been desensitized to the life around them. It makes me wonder if it was due to their imposed surrounding more than their actual brute nature. Some had been brought to captivity, some had been born there, but both groups had succumbed to their fate. Of all the zoo’s exhibits, these were the least entertaining, least engaged, and least animated of the animals. They usually had the smallest crowds due to their uninviting nature.
We as people can easily become much like these sad ones. We allow ourselves to disentangle from society and even often family, friends and loved ones as we castrate our emotions, and go into self-protection mode if we ever experience a hurt. We wear the countenance of an unapproachable being long enough and others actually stop approaching. We have unwittingly but by design become an emotional eunuch in our cage of self protection.
God created the animals on the sixth day in the Bible, which is the same day Man was created, but animals were created first. They were to be food, perform biological duties like procreation within their species but eventually they would consume each other in an effort to remain on the planet. Even Man himself consumed the animals. The sole purpose of the life cycle of the animals was to live, procreate, die without any emotional investment or ties.
But Man had other purposes, among them to care for the planet, vegetation, wildlife. But when Woman and others appeared on the planet, Man’s job broadened to take charge of those under his care. They were to be fed, clothed after the Fall, sheltered, and loved. What was Man’s expected ROI (return on investment) for his care? Respect, honor, submission, and ideally a return of gratitude and love.
Many of us have grown up under the authority of emotionally distant parents or been involved in relationships that encouraged an air of emotional distance between us and another person. We quarantine ourselves off later in life as we imitate what we knew growing up, even though we didn’t like the emotional distance and ignoring of the basics that occurred in our primary relationships. We become emotional eunuchs, much like the animals….pacing back and forth, watching but never participating in any valuable way with anyone around us, or worse…flying under the radar so no one would notice us, reach out and make us interact in a socially edifying and building kind of way for either ourselves or others around us. We float through years and eat, sleep, drink…sometimes too much…just trying to survive to the end of our personal loneliness and pain. We don’t strive to deal with anything or anyone. We take no chances and encourage no conversations. We create faux protections against getting hurt if we happen to let the cloak slide and someone sees inside the real “us”.
Emotional eunuchs all have one common trait…they all live a starvation life by choice and call it fullness. Ironically, the world often sees them as full, content, accomplished, functioning humans because that is the exhibit emotional eunuchs invite others to attend. They pull the “correct” people into their own circle who are willing to buy that ticket, nothing more, nothing less. And many times a higher price is paid than first imagined.
God said, right before Eve was created, one of the most important statements in the Bible in my thinking, right next to verses about God’s gift of salvation. He said “ It is not good that Man should be alone.” Usually this is seen through the filter of the man/woman relationship, but I think it is broader than that. I believe it is simply we all need each other whether we think so or not. Emotional distance taught doesn’t need to be caught and carried on into our own lives. We can choose to break that cycle as a deep and lasting way to worship our God, care for our fellow man, and love ourselves as God commands when He admonishes to love our neighbors AS OURSELVES.
As I find myself time to time slipping back into the old cages, I try to keep short accounts with myself. Why am I displaying old behaviors? What is the hot button being pushed emotionally for me right now in this particular situation and is it valid? Where have I castrated my emotions and need to experience some healing and give myself grace to “be not alone”?
Every day we are given a chance, as that three year old, to step over the low lying fence of our inhibitions, draw near to the cage keeping us out and others in, and become the key that unlocks the door for all of us. Then the world changes, and we begin to engage with those around us in a more meaningful way. We may get hurt, we may not. But we are not meant to live a life alone. It is a big ole beautiful world out there, waiting for us to join its creation. We may find the key, or be called to be a key for another, or perhaps both.
Today marks the third day of confirmation hearings for a new Supreme Court judge. Many in the public have had no contact or very little with the nominee and her positions, although she has operated within the legal field for years, and distinguished herself among her colleagues. She has finally come to a place to “get noticed” at the highest level in her chosen field by the recommendation of others. This has come when she already has a full life, it will not make or break her and her own path personally. Confirmation will only allow her to be a factor in the lives of others. Most Americans know who she is without knowing her in a deep way at all. As per the past confirmation hearings, there has been a very public discourse which included heated questioning, haggling over minute or unfounded issues, and often glaring disregard for the real matter at hand…a choice of a justice as viewed though a lens of better or worse.
It is politics after all.
But this method of determining of who people say they are, as opposed to who they really are, is vital in the justice confirmation process, and will result in the right choice. Why? Each nominee has been scrutinized through all types of means to get a clear picture. We could lob a few easy questions or allow the legislature or President to just assign our judges, but what would we really end up with in the end? Would this give us the unwavering confidence in those chosen to make good legal decisions on our behalf as a people? Likely not, it would be a superficial relationship at best, a constant exercise of keeping our fingers crossed, hoping we haven’t made a grave error in the choosing.
I have been thinking lately about how this corresponds to all life relationships, whether marriage, friendship, business or otherwise. A new someone enters our life almost daily unless we are a social hermit. During the covid crisis, this has been the case for many, the “hermitizing” I mean. I have even wondered if the pandemic and enforced necessity to stay at home more was merely a divine interruption, encouraging more self reflective opportunities for each of us. It would be interesting to take a survey to see how many of us have used our quiet time to reflect on past choices, relationships, and pursuits, and our part in the success or seeming failure of them.
I have been fortunate to reconnect with not one, but two friends from my high school and college years recently. With the college friend, I have had some conversations that are fun and silly, exclusively lighthearted, but will really provide no lasting depth to our current relationship. I have enjoyed each exchange, true. But I haven’t had to commit much to thought afterwards when we talk, and I have come to realize even in college, when we were very close and knew all about each other (or so I believed at the time), our friendship was very myopic /nearsighted. It only dealt with things that were instantly at hand and then quickly gone. We never really delved into who the other was, so I guess that is why when we each ceased to be there for the other (that friend moved away during college), it really left no deep impact on me one way or other over time. I married early, set forth on that portion of my life, and that friend went off into the sunset for 40 plus years.
In contrast, the high school friend I remembered, but didn’t know well at that time. We shared some classes, teachers, but never really were in the same circle of influence as far as peers…or so we thought. When we started talking recently, we have found more and more people we were each friends with during that period of time, albeit separately, but our own paths never really entwined in a distinctive friendship then. Our conversations have become very different than mine with the first friend. Although both started out the same, lighthearted and simple… the second friend and I have strayed into a bit deeper conversations, some that have caused me to think, and challenged me somewhat. Also in contrast, those conversations are more likely to come to mind during the day than the ones with the college friend.
It’s funny. I can’t really tell you what the college friend have talked about because it has lacked imagination in its nearsightedness and was more a rehashing of what was, and not what is or will be, and is the same friendship it was 40 years ago in all likelihood…here today, gone tomorrow, no harm and no foul. We were nearsighted then, we are nearsighted now. I am okay with that, and unchanged by the truth of it. It is what it is.
The high school friend’s conversations? More hyperopic /farsighted, kind of like our interaction during school days. The mutual friends and experiences then are acting as lenses to see each other in a different way now, and is giving me a different perspective on so many things over the last 40 years including these two people. I think back to how many friends I had both in lower grades of school and through my high school years, dated a lot, was involved in a lot of organizations and so forth…but rarely were any brought very close at all by choice. Even today I have very few people that I am close to or let into my circle, but my general public would think otherwise. I seem to be the person who is friends with everyone, “socially butterflying” here and there, but in reality not close to most in a lasting way.
In reflecting on both these friendships, I wish I had applied a “better or worse” lens back in school and college in making all my friendships. I regret I didn’t utilize more of even shallow friends to help clear my vision to see situations more clearly before they came to fruition. I think it may have even affected some of my latter decisions in life if I had developed a better discernment muscle then with a “confirmation hearing” of sorts on each relationship right at the beginning. I may have asked more piercing questions, watched others longer, reflected on my own inadequacies more deeply and honestly instead of focusing on the here and now when looking for just and good companions on my life path.
But then again, in not applying a ”better or worse” lens then and instead using past experience as the lens now I will see everything much more clearly. I love living my days now with an ability to simply look at things and people up close, and also far away, but with no more crossed fingers at my sides. Clarity delayed is still beneficial, even if the better must come after the worse. Perspective and time gives us a real and unadulterated look at ourselves in communion with what may be around the bend in the road. And it is often truly eye-opening…
The old saying is “God has a sense of humor”. If you ask me, He also has quite a sense of timing when dealing with His children.
Today is February 4th.
On this day 20 years ago, a relationship was invited into my life that proved to be life-changing…not in a good way. It almost proved my undoing for the next 5 years. But looking back on it today, I realized I found out a lot about myself through all that period of time. Ultimately it made me into the person I am today, who is pretty content because she learned what she didn’t want as much as what she did want. This was my moment “for a reason”.
On this day in 2005, I had my first date with my future husband. We are still friends, albeit as he says “on different journeys”. This has been my moment “for a season”.
On this date in 2011, I officially began the Got Junk In Our Trunk estate company where I helped countless people change their own lives with a skill God gave me years ago, that I didn’t even really know I possessed.I continue in a different way matching people up with cool finds, loving my job, planning to do this as long as I feel physically and mentally able. It gives me a creative outlet for writing, which is a first love for me. This has been my moment “for a lifetime”.
Today is February 4th…I am staying in, working on my lifetime stuff, enjoying the birds and reflecting on why I am who I am today, why I am where I am, why I am not where I want to be. Maybe I will look back in 10 years and think “On this date in 2020, XXX took place and changed my life.”
Hopefully it will be something good.
I am very much a Type A personality, so I really don’t do New Year’s resolutions. I kind of resolve all during my waking hours.
That said I do make plans, have wishes, hopes based on what transpired or didn’t transpire in my life over the last 365 days (next year I have an extra day to consider).
2019 saw a difference in my family with the birth of grandchild # 4, Marjorie. We are finishing up her first year on January 4th and all the “getting used to her” is pretty much a given. I hope 2020 to spend more time one on one with her so she will remember me when I am gone. I may or may not see her grow up and marry and have children and reach her own family state , so now is a more important time to spend with her than it was with the others I think at the same age.
2019 saw me downsize my estate business, then pretty much close up shop on it. It was and is a good feeling and one of the things I determined to do in 2019. 2020 I want to move forward with the online selling, but not
necessarily gear up volume as much as be pickier with my purchases, redeem my work time with more focusing, set myself some work hours that “cut off”. I want to make more money, but work smarter this year!
2019 I sold my home of almost 27 years and moved into a totally different home, city and lifestyle. The last few months of 2019 saw my time fly away, and my body groan with the physical necessities that moving entails. In 2020 I want to ease back into the master plan….more Rhonda time in my little bungalow, time to read, reflect, write and do things that have been on the back burner for years. 2020 will see me saying “no” more often than in the past to good things because I want only to say “yes” to the great things. That may be difficult. I love to go and do and see and experience. But I have really noticed since moving and settling in a new home, I crave the time to just feed the birds, sit outside, take walks, investigate things. You cannot do that if you are #1 not home, and #2 not engaged in your own life at home. I plan to allow myself to get diverted less often, and focus more on my simple pleasures. I may lose playmates here and there, but I guess that will have to be ok. I have found that like my own company.
I want to choose more wisely how I spend my minutes and with whom… for those become hours, then days, then years. It doesn’t mean I don’t love others, I just need more white space in my life so I can love better, and that most likely involves me not “attending” every event, or filling in every calendar page, or scheduling time off.
I want to find my place to plug in at church, meet new people, do new things…but only if they fit the master plan. That’s only fair to us both.
Lastly, I want to put away the last remnants of the past that have held my mind in bondage and free myself up to be ok with the Lord, ok with my fellow man, ok with myself. I am over “it” whatever “it” is or was, I am on to new things. No more ruminating over things that were not great at the time, but gave me good checkpoints for the future I want to live.
As I move into my 60th year (dang that is a long time to live, eh?) and celebrate that birthday, I want to do so gracefully and choose now to do so in “quietness and trust, gaining strength”, as it says in Isaiah 30:15.
My word for 2020 as my page turns? Calmness.
It’s been a while since I’ve written a blog post, and to tell the truth, it feels a bit odd, but good. The last couple of years I took a break from much of my life, and added to it in other ways. So much has changed it would take volumes to update any who followed me in the past.
So I will just choose to go forward, and let the reader figure “life went on”.
Today was set up to flow like many other days. I had a scheduled estate sale starting at noon (I liquidate estates now part-time and am an online reseller more full time), but one of my sister church campuses is located around the corner from that estate site, so I had chosen to attend there, then head to work for the day. I sat in the center of a long set of adjoining chairs near the back. It is usually where I sit, for no reason really, just because I don’t know many at this campus, save the one friend I have sat with a time or two. I usually attend a different campus, have many friends there, so there is no time I sit alone really. For the longest, I perched there, waiting for service to start. My friend was not in attendance today so I assumed I would be sitting alone pretty much. But close to service time a couple slid into the seats at the end of the row and were the only ones near. The service began, then a young man sat at the opposite end of the row from the couple and was holding a brown bag. New visitors get those bags to welcome them, so I knew this was his first visit to our church, and this campus.
The church service went on, preaching ended, then the worship leaders drew us into song once again at the end, which is not the usual pattern of worship… but for whatever reason, they had flipped the service around. As the songs went on, and those went to the altar to pray, others sang, I could see the man at the end of the row sit down, then slowly bend over with hunched shoulders…and he just sat with his head down…sighing, clasping and unclasping his hands.
I went over, placed a hand on the back of his shoulder. He didn’t look up, he just sat looking down, and then I heard him as he began to cry softly. I just stayed there, hand on his shoulder and prayed for him, as he dealt in his personal moment with God.
Once the song was ending, I went quietly back to my seat, waited for the prayer to end the service, then reached to get my belongings. I hadn’t planned to say a word, I didn’t want to cause any embarrassment or discomfort to him. He gathered his brown bag, then walked over with tears still in his eyes and a big smile. “Thank you so much, I needed that. ” Then came a big ole bear hug. I just smiled, didn’t say a word and turned to leave. I had experienced a “sudden opportunity”.
After leaving church I scurried to the estate site. My friend had back issues and wasn’t going to be able to help much with the estate sale as she has on other occasions. The rain was coming down, day was drizzly and dreary, and we had not a single customer. But we chatted, talked about nonsense, solved the world’s ills, and decided what would become of the craziness we find our lives enveloping at the present. Anyone who knows me is aware I rarely sit and do nothing. I am always moving, working or making things, repairing objects, helping with the grandlittles who now live with me, washing dishes (I am old school and like to do them by hand) or various other things that leave little room for Rhonda moments. I was sad my friend had back ills, but that became another “sudden opportunity” that I may not have made a place for. By the time I left, I wanted to believe she felt a bit better. I had taken a real day of rest, and we had caught up on each others’ lives in a totally unplanned but divinely orchestrated way.
On the drive home I stopped in at a local store to pick up a few bargains. Many were in plastic totes outside the store and marked “clearance’. Being a reseller I rarely pass by a clearance pile, it begs me to find those little treasures I can turn into cash. I had my phone in hand looking up some things on Ebay so I would know if they were of any value and the front doors of the store opened. A man walked swiftly by me, got in his car and as he was starting it up, the cashier ran out the front waving his arms. “It didn’t go through, sir, SIR…it didn’t go through!” As the car turned around, and sped away, the cashier slumped his shoulders in exasperation thinking the man had gotten away with the merchandise on his watch. I quickly raised my phone, aimed it at the license plate and snapped several photos as the car zoomed out into traffic and away. The cashier said “wow…you are fast!” I gave him the info he needed, and proceeded to shop the inside the store….and realized that was a third “sudden opportunity” I had embraced today.
The fourth came in a more usual way, without fanfare or fuss. I sent a text to my friend I had missed at church, simply letting him know he was missed. I had started to contact him a couple of times during the day but figured he was busy, and he was. He had several things going awry during his day, frustrating issues with his phone among other things. I couldn’t have messaged him earlier if I had wanted to. He had been dealing with so much today, and had not been home long from the sounds of his return text. We exchanged a few pleasantries, and I think that “sudden opportunity” to chat and laugh together a moment or two made him feel a bit better at the end of a pretty crummy day.
You know…I wonder, here at the end of my own day, how many times I have given up the chance to be that “sudden opportunity” in someone’s life because I was rushing around, not paying attention, self-involved or too tangled up in my own problems to see others that may need a friendly touch, a kind word, a moment of shared laughter. In the case of one friend, a handful of texting moments may have given him a bit of ease in his troubled spirit right before his sleep. A few hours with my girlfriend made her forget her back troubles and we were able to visit uninterrupted since no customers inserted themselves into our day. One moment of clear thinking and observation captured a thief. And three minutes with a nameless man may have helped him approach God in confidence because he knew he was not alone. As someone who schedules every waking moment, stepping back may give me a quietness of spirit, a rest in my walk with the Lord…and maybe many more special opportunities to be a bit more “sudden” in my life path.
I was a cleaning company owner for the better part of 20 years before I sold it in 2013. The company was born out of a need to eat and pay bills after my divorce. That particular profession was chosen because frankly it was about all I knew how to do and do well.
I was raised in a home by a working mom that was very organized and clean. My Dad, for a guy, was very neat and clean as well because he too was raised by a neatnik mom. In my grandmother’s day, the woman pretty much stayed home, the dad went to work, the children played outside but had chores to complete daily, and the family functioned like a well-oiled machine. In both my childhood home and grandmother’s home, we often had drop in company. Neither female scurried around to straighten when that happened, or apologized for the “look of the home” because it was always kept neat and orderly…not perfect mind you…but acceptable for entertaining a surprise guest. That is, till someone stopped doing their “job”.
When the woman was down sick, went on strike and quit cleaning and cooking or otherwise refused her daily responsibilities, the household didn’t know quite how to cope and it started following suit, leaving trails and messes behind, partially finished projects, dishes and the like in rooms never meant to be eaten in. This household flailing around was a reaction to the chaos created when one person couldn’t or wouldn’t do their part and the other people in the home were forced to live by the other person’s lifestyle rules rather than the standard of the home that was to be for the benefit of all. Sometimes it happened when another person ignored their responsibilities in favor of other activities in a “why bother” choice of a self-serving lifestyle. And sadly the whole house suffered until the one began doing their part once again.
I took up the gauntlet of housekeeping after my third year of marriage when my daughter was born. But the first two years of marriage, I lived in a “why bother” state. I had come from a strict home where things were clean and orderly and the newfound freedom of schedule and purpose kind of got away from me. My husband had been raised by a German mom who was neat and orderly too, so my standard of lifestyle, or lack of it, was a constant irritation to him, although he really didn’t say a lot. Rings in the toilet became common, wrinkled clothes that were clean but not folded and put away, dishes left in huge piles had to be moved to make dinner (I was quite the cook and had near gourmet-type dinners almost every night), dust would be puffy on the furniture and wreak havoc on our sinuses…and still I didn’t bother with those things because I was busy elsewhere. I had other things I thought were more important like being outside, playing in the pool with my newborn daughter, visiting friends and family, reading romance novels, and so forth. Nothing was inherently wrong with those things, but they should have been done after my home was put into decent order. I felt out of whack personally for the first two years and couldn’t figure out why. Once I saw a photo of my baby in the middle of the kitchen table surrounded by unopened mail, dishes, books, etc., I suddenly realized I had been doing the good things when I could be doing the great things. I knew that day I didn’t want my baby to grow up in a home that was a constant mess. I wanted her to have friends over and not be embarrassed at the condition of our home. And come they did, we became the place kids liked to come visit because we were clean and orderly AND fun! And that made us all feel special.
Many years later, when I owned my cleaning company, I remembered those early years of wifedom while training a new cleaning tech. She had interviewed well, was neat and well groomed personally and spoke well in conversation. This was usually a pretty good indicator of how the tech would conduct themselves in a client’s home. As I took her out for her first week of training I began to see that she was capable of being an excellent cleaning tech. She was very detailed, good with the clients, fast and efficient. I made a permanent hire of her and she went out on teams for a while, then was released to do solo cleaning, as all my techs were when they were fully trained. I knew she would make a lot of money for my company because she was good at detail and fast.
A few weeks after this tech had been on her own, the route manager came back after checking jobs, which was part of her duties of the day. She reported on this particular tech. The home was very clean, the client seemed happy with the person assigned to clean her home and said the tech was pleasant. But the more the route manager talked with the client she could see that there was something missing in her overall customer experience. The manager hadn’t been able to nail it down in the talk with the client because the client didn’t really elaborate in specifics on what was missing that day, she could only say “I just didn’t feel the same about my service today, I don’t know why.”
I decided that the next job check on this tech would be conducted by me. I went to the home while the tech was still cleaning and checked behind her completed work. She was finishing a bathroom, and it was left sparkling. As she turned to walk out I asked “Are you finished?” Her answer was yes, so I entered and looked around a bit myself. There were no cleaning flaws, everything was near perfect. But something was nagging at me. I finally realized what it was and called her back in.
“You forgot to fold the toilet paper in a hospitality fold and the towels into the swan shape. You have been shown these things, correct?” I knew she had because I had been her first trainer. “Yes ma’am, you showed me, but none of my other trainers included this. I didn’t think it was part of the cleaning, it was just an extra if we wanted to do it for the client.” I instructed that it was to be done on each cleaning unless the client requests it to be dropped for any reason. She looked a little confused and said she would certainly do it but then she said “May I ask a question?” I said yes and she asked “Why do we bother to do the things like folding paper and towels if that slows us down and you want us to focus on the cleaning and speed?” It was an honest question and I could tell she wanted to know my reason. I told her other cleaning companies did what we do. They made bathrooms sparkle, they vacuumed all the way to the edges of the room, they picked up things and dusted the furniture instead of around items. Other companies gave the customer what they asked for, but not what they didn’t ask for. We gave them the other things because they needed to feel special, but didn’t know they needed that kind of treatment. But even more, we did it because it made us feel special about our work and each home we cleaned and each client we interacted with during our work day. “We do it for them, but more for us” I said. I could tell she “got it” when she said “ You know, I can see how doing those things would make me feel differently about my client and also myself, I would kind of feel like a personal cleaner for them and they would feel like I had gone the extra mile. I may even start doing stuff like that at my own house, and I live alone!” We both laughed and I knew I had made a convert. She had grasped the concept of good vs. great. As a result, her tips went up almost immediately. That smart tech became one of my most requested cleaners, all because she did the expected for them, then did the unexpected for herself.
Our world in the last couple of decades has changed quite a lot. People have gone inward, many think only of themselves and what’s in it for them when they go to their job or conduct their daily routines. You only have to watch the old TV programs to know how far we have sunk into our selfishness. The men on Leave it to Beaver or The Dick Van Dyke Show are the kind of men I was raised by and around. They opened doors, lighted cigarettes for women, held their coats for them, helped with the dishes, tucked children in, read them stories, administered discipline and on and on, even after a full day at the office or factory. The women were the kind of homemakers I was raised around. Dinner was on the table at 6, the home was neat and orderly, children had done homework and played outside till dark. Yes, even if the woman happened to also have a full time job outside the home, as my mom did.
In our current world we have more conveniences, and much less “time”, or so it would seem. But I think it is much deeper than that. The current generation often has the “why bother” attitude about so many things they deem as secondary in importance. We tend to assign too much value to “good” things that don’t contribute to our personal well being and that of our families. We substitute fun activities, elaborate meals, busyness and frolic in place of “great” things like caring for others and their needs. When we are too busy with one, the other tends to suffer. And sadly we are teaching the upcoming generation that it doesn’t matter to practice hospitality, homemaking, responsibility, or any number of the golden traits that they can only learn from us…the ones who remember.
My grandchildren live with me and I work a lot, so I am not home much during the day. But I try to take each opportunity I have to teach them the value of loving others through caring for them and their needs. When they clean up their rooms and make their beds I tell them I feel good when I see this, it makes me feel loved and it is a way they say “thank you for inviting us to live with you”. When one comes to my room and asks “Can I help you with anything?” I don’t shoo them away with “No, thank you for offering though”. Instead I make sure I have something, anything for them to do for me so they feel special, and I can bond with them and feel special too.
We don’t live on islands in this life. Everything we do and do not do affects another. If I walk into a store and a man is ahead of me, I step out of his way so he can open the door, rather than bolting up there and doing it myself. I give him the opportunity to say “You first” by his own choice of actions. Nine times out of ten he will almost run to open the door, smile and greet me, and you can tell it makes him feel special to do so. It is a small thing, but makes a huge impact in both people. I think it’s time for more of us to look at our surroundings, job, personal relationships and life in general and discover where we may be sacrificing the “great” for the “good”. If we choose to look through “why bother” eyeglasses each day, we may actually see and feel better ourselves if we do.
There are times when all of us look back over the high and low points of our life. Ideally, the highs are much more prevalent than the lows, but not always the case. I know in my own case, I could have been a cat I have lived so many lives. Some I am proud of, some I hope no one ever discovers.
In high school, I was middle-of the road popular, had auburn hair, big ole brown eyes and a quick wit. I was a class favorite I suppose, got along well with most I attended classes with and the teachers seemed to place me in their top 20% of students. Grades were decent, I did have to dig a bit in some cases, but usually came out well when tested. I had several boyfriends over the four years of high school, and loads of girl friends. All in all I had a great high school experience.
I loved to read, was actually an avid reader since the grade school years. In fact, I made friends with the librarian at Westhaven Elementary in my third grade year and she always let me check out more books than was commonly allowed in a week because I read them so fast. I would start with a topic such as women in aviation, then read all I could about girl pilots like Amelia Earhart. When no more books could be found on the shelves, I would switch subjects or take on a particular author such as Louisa Mae Alcott or Emily Dickinson and read everything the dusty ole shelves held. I had a kind of lonely childhood, a bit hard at times and characters such as the Bobbsey Twins or Trixie Belden became my whole world of escape from the difficulties of the world around me.
When I entered high school, I was given a list of clubs I could join during orientation. While most of the high school girls gravitated toward the pep squads and Tri-Hi-Y clubs, I involved myself in the annual staff or newspaper club because I found that reading was second only to writing. I adored writing and would spend hours upon hours spinning tales in my free time, writing lyrics of songs for an unknown guitar player, or make up diabolically morose stories about my “sworn enemies”…of which there were truly few.
My created world became much my real world when the days grew long and hard.
A high school class I took changed my life in many ways. My teacher was Jan Knight, and she was already a writer of sorts. She taught us the honing of our skill and we put together a book of poetry and prose that year in high school. We excitedly bound it all into a book that was sold to friends, family and patrons of the school. I felt “published”, and it lit the fire of journalism forever in my soul. That book sits on my bedside table all these years later.
As time went by, I majored in journalism in college at Memphis State (now University of Memphis…I have no idea why the name change was necessary). I also took night classes in creative writing from time to time just because I couldn’t get my fill of writing during the day classes. One class was conducted by Ed Weathers. At the time he was a writer and editor for Memphis Magazine. He gave us basic skills and information for the first part of the semester, then the final part of the semester was putting together actual pieces for possible publication.
I was never so excited when Ed asked me to stay after class one night. He had my submission in his hand and it didn’t have any marks on it. I actually thought at first he was going to turn it back into me to do over again. “This is an excellent piece of journalism, Rhonda”. My knees were shaking, and my mouth went dry. I was stunned, because this was a really big deal to me. He then said he was going to take it, with my permission, back to the main editor of the magazine and suggest it be fleshed out for a piece to run in the next month’s issue.
When I got to my car that night, I had to sit for a few moments, the tears rolling. I knew my life was about to take a turn in a wonderful direction, if I let it. When I got home to my new husband and told him what had happened, he was very happy for me and took me out to dinner, which we rarely did at that time because finances were so low. As happy as he was, I knew he didn’t really get the importance of this one moment in my life, and never would. It was my big break.
I continued to write for Memphis Magazine, and several articles were published. I also wrote for Mature Living Magazine, Modern Maturity, Highlights for Children, Humpty Dumpty Magazine and others. I received my share of rejection letters as all writers do, but I was making a bit of money and doing what I loved so those really didn’t affect me. Marriage rolled on, a baby came, and suddenly there were just not enough hours in the day to write, read or anything else much.
I made a choice to be a mom, and placed my first calling on hold for many years to give my life to my second (in chronological order only) calling.
As I raised my daughter, homeschooled, participated at church over the years, I thought often of returning to the writing field. I did dabble here and there with church publications when they fit my schedule, but that was not often. I dedicated myself to the tasks at hand and loved every minute of those years. When time came that Samantha grew up and left home, I once again thought about taking up my pen. But things, people and situations got in the way and I veered off my true life path quite a while. I guess those years will be fodder for an autobiography, or not.
After my divorce and remarriage, I opened a business and became associated with a business group in my hometown. One of the group members was involved in a magazine start-up. My ears perked up when he presented the BLINK Magazine prototype, and told it would highlight leaders of our community, places to visit and so forth. It would be a really comfortable writing space for me since most of my work had been human interest stories and I loved to interview people. I talked with the editor after the meeting and he asked me to submit a few pieces I had written recently. I hesitated, then was honest and said I hadn’t written in a while but I knew this was something I was supposed to be involved in. I guess Jim saw the hungry look in my eye because he placed me on staff as a writer without looking at any work at all.
I spent my days running a large residential cleaning company and spent my nights and weekends interviewing high caliber community leaders. I wrote cover stories and inside issue pieces about local chefs, hospital administrators, the yearly regional festivals, people in the arts and theater. I was in my element and as time went on, I felt more and more that my day job was really just a way to pay the bills so I could do my real job, as a writer. My day job almost became an annoyance as I longed to get home and write.
One fork in the writing road for me came with my interview of Preston Lamm. He had come from an accounting background in college, got bored with it and started to pursue his greater interests. Over the years he had developed many properties in Memphis and the surrounding area and rubbed shoulders with people of class and wealth, and was known as a premier builder and business mogul. He was about to open an upscale restaurant in the area and he was my assignment. I had always gone on the interviews alone with only a photographer in tow. This time, Jim, the editor said he was coming with me. I don’t know why, but this worried me for days before the interview. I didn’t sleep, I researched and researched until facts and dates concerning my subject were all running together. I was certain I was going to make a fool of myself and Jim was going to be there to try and save the day if I did. I didn’t know why Jim wanted to be there unless this was a really big deal and he didn’t want me to blow the interview. I knew I had to find a hook, something to pull Lamm into my camp, and drag Jim back over with him. I had to do something unexpected.
On the day of the interview with sweaty palms, I met Preston Lamm. I could tell he was a little gruff, maybe a bit obnoxious if the need arose, and I was secretly terrified, but plunged into the interview. It went ok, no major stumbles. I could feel my adrenaline rise and fall many times as he answered my questions and I could hear the mild boredom in his answers and see it in his eyes. I could tell he had been interviewed to death, he felt this was nothing new, I was just another hack wanting a story, asking the same old dry questions.
We got to the end of our time and I said I had one more question. He looked relieved, leaned back a bit, crossed his arms and said “Ok, shoot.” I pulled a photo out of my briefcase and slid it over in front of him as I said “This young man is coming to you as a mentor. He is asking for your best piece of advice concerning his future, what he should do, if he is pursuing the right path for himself. What would you advise him, knowing what you know today?”. He looked down, and was taken back. He let out his breath, kind of coughed and said incredulously, “Where…where did you find this?”
It was a black and white photo of an 18 year old Preston Lamm, right before he started his first construction job out of high school, before college detours into accounting, before marriage and kids, before all of it. I told him I had researched for other articles about him, but had randomly run across this in my search and wondered if he would have had his dream job years earlier if he had turned away from the norm, and followed the road less traveled, the harder road, the road more challenging.
“Well, I would have to say, having hindsight, I would tell this young man to follow his dream rather than following what makes the stable money or satisfies family, or obligates you to a standard. I was the lucky one, I was given a second chance to do what I longed to do. Most are not afforded that second chance. They have to see into the future, 20/20 and without blinders on.”
I have never forgotten that advice, although I haven’t been able to implement it, as yet, in my own life to a great degree. If I had a choice right now, as much as I love what I do as an estate liquidator and seller of vintage items, I would lay it all down to write…day in and day out. I could find no greater contentment than to find myself like Jo March in Little Women….scribbling away with pen and ink in a drafty attic and crying over a half eaten bowl of russet apples, as fall leaves fly by my dormer window.
Maybe one day, it can happen for me. As I get older, my eyesight does get a bit better every day. If I look at my own graduation photo, I can almost see that journalist shining through. One day maybe I will have enough of the mundane and reach for my star regardless of the consequences. True happiness won’t really cost me a lot…just a notebook, an idea, heeding my own inner advice, and perhaps my one moment in time.
Being in the junk business can be quite interesting. You meet lots of fun folks, see loads of uniquely cool items, and go places like muddy, rusty junkyards, underneath overgrown chimneys out in fields, and dilapidated barns to uncover the honey holes of junk. I love what I do, even if it can contribute to one of my biggest weaknesses….a tendency to hoard that junk.
I really, today anyway, am not all that big a hoarder. At least not as big as hoarder as most and not even as massive a hoarder as I used to be. I have always placed large value on preserving the past, and would save things from destruction by purchasing or picking them up roadside even if I didn’t have an immediate use for them. I like to help others by giving away junk, and this was always my modis operandi, till I went into business and had to start selling it to make my living. Things have changed, due to the premium on space at my home and no storefront. Pretty much everything I now purchase at yard sales, find on the side of the road or dig for in those interesting barns goes into my storage units and everything has a price. And NOTHING is above getting sold.
It is that time of year when I am purging my booths, rearranging the existing storage units (four to be exact) and trying to eliminate one by the end of January at the latest. Since closing my shop in the summer and moving items to storage I have been selling a lot in various booths and online. But there are always those items, for whatever reason, that don’t turn right away and sit, and sit, and sit some more in storage. By the time they do sell, they are not worth anything because the initial value is gone, and the storage fees paid come off that bottom line. I abhor storage, always have, but it is a kind of necessity in my business right now. My job is to stay ahead of the game so the stuff doesn’t rule me, and rather I rule the stuff. Things were complicated a bit when my ideal number of two 10 by 10 storage units swelled to an additional two units that are 10 by 20 due to the sudden closing of one of the stores where my booths were located. I had to shove it into storage just to vacate in awful, blistering weather during our Indian summer, and now I am dealing with it again in the extreme cold.
They are not fun, those two units.
I was watching the TV show Hoarders the other day. Being a professional organizer in my former life, I understand the psychological side of hoarding. The affected person has a deep seated need of some sort that surfaces in the hoarding. It affects not only that person, but also their family, their finances, friends, social life and even their spiritual life as they struggle to free themselves of the ties that bind them to their unnecessary possessions. A common thread that is voiced is “I can’t throw this out, SOMEONE might need it.”
Sometimes they are their own someone. Other times it is this faceless child or old person who cannot afford those headless dolls, moldy Tupperware pieces , defunct cell phones, or volumes of sports rackets that just need restringing to be good as new. In one episode I watched the other day, the psychologist pried opened a huge tote and found it was full of Chex mix. It had been stored over five years, the hoarder said, and she was saving it for “entertaining”. It was the leftovers of other parties she had hosted and she just kept dumping stuff in because, well…someone might need it…that someone being her.
After watching that episode, I was pretty reflective and have pondered a lot about the units I have. I think there are legitimate reasons for me to have those units in some cases, I do have to have backstock from my estate liquidations and have ongoing inventory to sell. But…is anyone REALLY going to want most of what is in those units? Highly unlikely, or if they do it will be a needle in a haystack finding the right buyer at the right time on most items. Just because it CAN sell sometime, doesn’t at all mean that it WILL.
And in all honesty, it is a LOT more fun buying something new and turning it right away because I purchased with someone directly in mind, instead of buying on a maybe or because it was cheap.
I also thought about how most of us hoard in intangible portions of our lives, too. We keep things in our minds that should have been thrown out long ago, things that are past their prime, no longer productive and in fact costing us dearly every single day. We hold grudges, we save words to be used in “that” conversation we want to have with our enemy, we have dark thoughts about our growing up, or we harbor ill toward a person who said a cross word to us on the wrong day in high school. We hold onto them for the same reason as the Chex Mix lady held onto her salty, stale snacks…someone might need it someday. And sadly, we are that someone.
It would be so much better to hold onto those things worth saving, rather than hold onto those things that weigh us down and make us sad. We don’t need those memories of the past, they only inhibit a beautifully sound future. And that is my plan for both my physical and my spiritual storage as 2016 comes to a close.
As I purge the storage units, I plan to hold things with light fingers. If it is not an object I can put right into a booth, or get photos of and list online, or list on ebay within the next month, then it is going right out to donation. Let someone else deal with it and find the right person to purchase.
And as I contend with those old memories that want to suffocate and dampen my bright future, I plan to toss them into the old mental Chex Mix tote, and then toss that sucker right out. I’d much rather spend my time saving things that are truly worth it to me. No more renting space in my mental attic to those things that are not making a contribution to my future.
And it won’t be that difficult, once I really get started with the ruthless toss task. I have always been a much better owner than renter anyway.
It’s funny how traditions start in a family. I married in the summer of 1979 as a young girl of 19 to a slightly older man of 21. We lived in an apartment in Memphis near Graceland. The apartments were within walking distance of my parents’ home and also his, but we still felt pretty independent, although close enough to reach out for a Mommy hug if we ever needed one.
The upstairs apartment was considered large, for the day. There was a huge great room (wasn’t called that then, it was still called a living room), with a dining room large enough to seat 6 comfortably at the end of the long room. The kitchen was tiny but adequate and there were three bedrooms and a bath and a half. There was a common complex washroom, which was not a great thing when you had to lug the laundry downstairs and over the hilly lawn. But during the heat of the summer, I could wash and dry clothes while lying by the pool just off the washroom, so it kind of balanced out. We couldn’t believe our first apartment, in a community mostly of old folks, was actually within the budget of two newlyweds living on a bakery clerk and grocery customer service guy’s salaries.
There was one thing we both hated about the apartment though…the stairs. It wasn’t bad enough to have to come up two flights at the front door. We were up THREE flights at the back since it was built into a hill and over a small storage area we shared with the other tenants of our particular building. If we wanted anything out of the storage or needed to take the trash out, it was down those three flights or we otherwise had to go way around the entire building, through a small alley, over a hill and to the back of the building.
Being young, we often chose the second path.
But there was one glorious thing about that back stairwell. It had a long, wide balcony at the top just off the kitchen door. From that balcony, I could see all the way to the Mississippi riverfront, many miles away. During the summer, I’d sit there while my husband worked the late shift, and watch the traffic amble by on Winchester Road. On July Fourth we had a birds’ eye view of the fireworks display over the west end of the city from battered up webbed lawn chairs. In those days, at those times we loved those stairs that shoved the balcony way up high over our end of the city.
I spent a lot of time out back because of the view. I’d read Woman’s Day and Redbook magazines while supper cooked, or watch the apartment dwellers going in and out of the apartments I could see from our back door. When my husband would get ready to leave for work, he’d know he could find me there most of the time. He’d say goodbye, head down the front to the car, and drive around the building. Then he’d stop at the bottom of the back stairs, lean over to the passenger side of the car and look through that window up to where I was hanging over the banister waiting. I’d wave, he’d wave, then take off down the street…and that was the beginning of the tradition called “waving goodbye”.
Through the years, we always waved goodbye. Once my daughter was born, she joined me on that balcony when Daddy left, and we both waved. We moved from that apartment to our first home. It had a big front window, and Samantha was big enough to go to the window on her own, which she did, and she waved until Daddy (or me if gone to run errands) would clear out of her sight. When people visited, or grannies and granddads left, we all went out onto the porch, and we waved goodbye. Now that my child is grown and her little ones live with me, when I go to work, the littles let me know they will wave to me out the big arched window. And I always look back, and I am never disappointed with an empty window.
I was reminded a few weeks ago about this tradition when I was leaving for errands. Only Lorelai was home with her Mom, the boys were at the sitter’s for the day. I got in the car, mission-minded, list in hand and started to pull back down the driveway. I caught something out of the corner of my eye. It was my sweet granddaughter, inside the garage doing her morning chores, but she had paused to wave at me as I was leaving. I stopped the garage door with the remote as it got halfway down and was going to raise it again so she could see me. But quickly she leaned down, looked at me under the big steel door and flashed her hand in the “I love you” sign language, which changed into a furiously pumping goodbye wave. As I let the door go on down to the ground, I mused about how the times change, but this tradition stands.
December is a time to celebrate the birth of a Savior, someone who came to earth so we could say goodbye to unhappiness and fear, and say hello to a bright new future with Him, if we so choose. It is also a time of reflection and usually a time to wave goodbye to the year we have just flown through. This year is no different. I have said goodbye to customers who have passed away, friends also who have gone on. I took a partial retirement and waved goodbye mid-summer to my retail junk shop, and said goodbye to a profitable booth space in a nearby city when that thrift shop closed. I said a forced goodbye to a friend I had had for almost 15 years…still don’t know why that friendship went away, but it did, so I chose to just wave and go on down the street. Leaving something behind is the hardest part of waving goodbye.
I look forward to 2017 and hope it is a year of many new hello moments. It feels like it will be a year of promise, potential, and peace just waiting for us to embrace it, and savor it. Wonder what is waiting just around the bend? I don’t know about you, but I am getting my hand ready to flash the “love” sign next December. Something tells me this is the year to add that to the goodbye tradition, no matter what the year does or doesn’t bring…even if it means we had to climb an extra flight of stairs to get through it.
