You know what? Life’s just a bit like that, sometimes.
You begin the day wearing a wide grin, a full face of makeup, good hair and an outfit entirely made up of ‘dry clean only’.
Your Preschooler is now back to 90% of his usual self and to celebrate you walk his scooter and him down the road for a skinny cap and babycino before work. You congratulate yourself on remembering your enviro coffee cup and the fact that you have such a lovely babysitter to cover the day for you.
The day unfolds around you under the shine of the best sun you’ve seen in quite some time. It’s going to be a great day. Because everything is going to plan and it’s Friday and the weather is glorious.
The day is in fact great. Work gets sorted with a surreal level of efficiency and a high rate of positive outcomes. You return home to a well child who want to go out for a late lunch. He wants Maccas. You don’t question this because you have an afebrile child in front of you with both an appetite and a spark in his eye. You don your favourite outfit of ripped knee jeans and a white T. You slip on your favourite white birkis, the ones that are synonymous with summer to you personally. You are mutton dressed as lamb and you are definitely not dressing your age. You do not care. Ages like ‘turning 42 the next day’ are only a number.
The outing is a great success. Actual food and fluids are consumed. A side trip to Aldi after a walk in the sun is completed. You’ve got this. You’ve survived a pretty hellish week. You are in the moment, and finding the joy.
Then you get home and find that the hot water tap doesn’t work. None of them. Not just the tricky one in the kitchen that needs to be flicked at a certain angle to operate. Even the normally reliable faucet in the laundry is delivering nothing but streams of cold water. At 4.30pm on a Friday.
It’s not ideal and it’s even more so after the week you’ve had. There’s a flurry of activity to head back out the door again for the welcoming lights of Woolworths to find a cheap kettle for the bathroom and some kind of prepackaged dinner to minimize the need to wash anything up in hot water.
You eventually convince yourself of the silver lining of the latest situation. You do at least have electricity, running (cold) water, food and a roof over your heads. A plumber will be coming tomorrow to have a look. He sounds a decent bloke having tried to help you troubleshoot during that late Friday afternoon phone call.
Being reliant on a kettle for all your hot water needs takes in a kind of monastic quality (relative to the privileged life you usually lead). You are acutely conscious of the need to be economical with its use. Face washers, basins and scoops are employed as you wash. You use the time it takes for the kettle to boil to breathe (and write blog posts). The face washer method of washing your face yields surprisingly good results. Your ‘yesterday’s eyeliner is today’s smoky eye’ game is strong.
The new bathing arrangements are a hit with your preschooler and the rest of the evening takes on a quiet and technology free direction. Almost as if bathing with buckets set the entire household back a few decades appliance wise.
You have cake and ice cream after dinner. There is champagne in the fridge but you’re nearly 42 and hence old enough to know that slightly hung over with a newly healthy child on a Saturday morning would not be a good look. The bottle continues to look pretty in your fridge with its suggestion of a slightly more sophisticated life than the one that’s currently taking place beyond its doors.
It’s just been a bit like that today. But it was what it was and you did what you had to do. You won some and you lost some. And gee were those losses keenly felt.
And you go to bed with every hope and conviction that tomorrow and its tomorrows will be better days.
