Posted by Elizabeth

“There is only once place.  The one you’re in.  You can never leave, but you can turn it inside out.” ~ Karen Maezen Miller, “Hand Wash Cold:  Care Instructions for an Ordinary Life”

We've come a long way, baby.

Today is the day I’ve been waiting for, the one in which I can finally say, “I’m done.”  After seven months of saving and spending, sweating and swearing, stressing and stewing, our bathroom remodel is complete.  This day has been the beacon on my horizon, the one against which all others were measured:

As soon as the bathroom is done things will be easier.

As soon as the bathroom is done things will be back to normal.

As soon as the bathroom is done I’ll have time for other things.

But this morning I sit staring at my ever-growing to-do list, a smattering of bullet points that stretches on and on, blind to the victory that was supposed to make everything better.  A new mantra is forming off the stormy shores of my mind, dark and brooding:

As soon as the car seat is installed we’ll be ready.

As soon as we’ve cleaned the garage we’ll be ready.

As soon as we’ve organized the cabinets we’ll be ready.

I spend a great deal of my life waiting.  Waiting for things to get better, to calm down, to be different.  Over the years I’ve managed to convince myself that once x is done then life will reach that delicately impossible state of homeostasis that I so crave.  But one goal is replaced by another, and soon our to-do lists are littered with a lifetime of “somedays.”

In Karen Maezen Miller’s Hand Wash Cold:  Care Instructions for an Ordinary Life, she reminds us that, “When we view real life as a roadblock, we’re held prisoner by time.”  Today I realize that for seven months I bade my time and nervously watched the calendar pages float to the floor, waiting for the magical day when I could start living my “real” life sans bathroom project, never realizing that my real life was the only one I have:  the one I was already living.  Miller says, “Your real life is the life you pine for, the life you’re planning or the life you’ve already lost…this is the life we are most devoted to:  the life we don’t have.”  This morning, clutching my to-do list, I can’t help but wonder how much time I’ve wasted waiting for a life that will never materialize.

So how do we get out of our own way and begin living the life that we have, warts and all, without expectation of something better, calmer, and different?  Miller suggests that “it gets easier as soon as you get out of your judging mind – the mind that picks and chooses your way as best and regards all other ways as less.”  In counselor-ese this is a classic “reframe,” choosing to see your circumstances in a new light.  Instead of teetering at the edge of the remodel, waiting for it to be done, I could have dived into the experience, or found a different way to occupy those long weekends, or simply shifted my attitude.  In short, I could have saved seven months of waiting by seeing this project – and by extension this phase of life – not as an obstacle but an opportunity to live life for what it is.  Sure, life is full of ups and downs, and some periods are less hectic than others.  But that long-awaited day when everything is in its proper place, when things finally calm down, when everything is better?  That day is now.

Do you struggle with waiting for some other life to arrive that will “save” you from the life you’re already living?  Are you always waiting for things to be better, calmer, and different?  How do you cope with living the life you have, especially when things get hectic?