It Begins With an Unmade Bed

It begins with an unmade bed. After that, neglect and procrastination are natural steps, taken with the greatest of ease. What few dishes there are can wait until tomorrow, the dust is hardly noticeable, the plants are holding their own and the random clothes dropped here and there aren't hurting anyone. What begins as the tiniest bit of laziness has reached full fledged sloth in a matter of hours. I marvel.
Sunday comes and with it, the hour of reckoning. But then again, I have all day so there's no harm in an extra hour or two of sleep. When I wake, it's just past noon and I imagine I hear not only my grandmother's footsteps but her voice, How can you live like this? Get up this instant! And I do. Tired and guilty, I begin housecleaning, shooing animals from everywhere I need to be, gathering laundry and putting things to right. It takes the remainder of the day and when done I'm more tired and headachy than when I started and too hot to eat more than a chocolate bar and a glass of apple juice. Speaking nutritionally, I am in the land of the walking wounded with neither the inclination nor the will to change. I despair.

Monday dawns bright and beautiful, the beginning of a new work week. With the animals fed and watered, I shower and dress, make the bed, put on makeup. My hair works on the first try, my keys are exactly where they should be,

I remember my bottle of chocolate milk, my car starts. I hope.

I once read that one of the prime causes of teenage suicide is a teenager's inability to see down the road, to recognize that change will come, that no bad feeling or depression will last forever. They see no way out.

When you have taken everything you can stand,

Stand your ground.
Hold the fort,
Withstand the pain.

And if you are running

And the wind is always is in your face,
Just keep on running,

The wind is bound to change.

Larry Gatlin