Saturday, August 16, 2008

On-My-Ownness

Today has been just one more new and exciting adventure in adulthood. I never thought my Saturday To Do list (if I ever thought I'd have one) would be this exciting:

Laundry
Cut the Grass
Pick up Prescription
Buy toothbrush and trashbags
Write thank you note

I know. I'm the most fun person I know today!

That's not to say I don't enjoy it, though. We have a non-functioning lawnmower, so our entire yard (small, though it is) has to be cut with the electric weed eater. Cutting the back yard was a learning experience. The front yard was like trying to reduce an afro with a nose-hair trimmer. My right elbow will definitely be sore tomorrow, and I am no longer a human being - I'm now just one giant mosquito bite. (As suburban as it is, I now understand at least a little, why people hire teenage boys with endless energy reserves to do their yard work.)

As tedious as I make it sound, it was empowering on a new level. It was satisfying to see the piles of loose grass along the road after I raked them out and knowing I did that myself. It was not unsatisfying to observe the stark contrast between my strip of grass and my neighbor's, where I had stopped cutting at the property line. If I had my say, these wouldn't be first on my list of Saturday morning activities, and I'm sure the novelty of adulthood will wear off sooner than I can imagine. But I'll always take opportunities when they're given - to laugh at myself, to interact with the post-man because he has to walk up my front steps to put the mail in the box, to wave at my neighbors when I'm walking or when I see them outside the neighborhood, to get my hands dirty.

What a sweet life.

"I'm amazed by life, and it's amazed by me,
We're a strange old pair, me and eternity...
It's a long, hard road with a good, good end."
-Waterdeep