How a 5 Year-Old's Honest Opinion Of My Messy House Changed My Perspective

Photo by Senjuti Kundu on Unsplash

You know those days when you have to be out the door at a certain time in the morning and you washed and dried the laundry the night before, but you were working on that thing that had to be done for the next morning and the laundry was left in a pile on your couch? That morning when the preschooler’s pants are scratchy, and he can’t find socks while you are trying to get breakfast cleaned up, but you’re running out of time, and you can’t be late because the rest of the entire day has been jam-packed in perfectly harmonious detail?

Well, today was one of those days. And after dropping off the pre-schooler, and doing the important thing I couldn’t be late for, I was supposed to meet my precious friend for a picnic at the playground, and we weren’t supposed to be in my house.

We weren’t supposed to be in my house with the laundry in the living room and the jelly solidified and sticky on the counter. We weren’t supposed to be in my house with the games my children were inventing all over the floor of the front room and the library books scattered all over the table and the chair.

But, you guys. I live in Colorado, and the wind was blowing trampolines across highways that day. And my house was only a mile away. So the picnic on the playground turned into lunch at my house.

I always get embarrassed to invite people into my messy home where we live like this. But my dear friend who came to my house that day has literally seen me completely naked… at 42 weeks pregnant. That’s right. She helped me bring my youngest son into the world because nothing was working, and I didn’t trust my doctor, and my husband doesn’t have lady parts, and I trusted her to tell me what to do. So she showed up and told me to open my vagina like a flower. Now, I don’t know about you, but I don’t know how to open a flower like a flower, so opening my vagina gently like a flower was just not in the cards that day. So she told my lady doctor to break my water and give me an epidural.

My friend is very smart, because my sweet baby was born about 45 minutes later.

But I digress. On THIS day, this windy day, my friend walked in with her 5 year-old twin girls one minute after I arrived from that thing I had to do. And her girls stood wide-eyed, looking around at the piles of books and the games and toys. They saw the chalkboard they could reach in the front room, and one of the girls smiled the best kind of knowing smile and said, “Oh. You live in a fun kind of house!”

It was clear to her that my house said, “You can touch things. You can play with things. You can read books and cuddle in that chair. You can be comfortable here. You are welcome to be yourself here, child.”

And that’s just what I wanted it to say! But my perfectionist-people-pleaser tendencies thought that my house could only tell people they were welcome here when the counters were clean, the laundry was put away, and the books and toys were shelved and organized. To a 5 year-old, though, a mess means FUN!

And that’s how God sends us into the world. He sends us into the world stark nekkid and covered in goo. We are messes when we’re born. We flail around for years trying to obey our parents, only to decide as teens that those parents don’t know anything. Only to have children of our own and realize that they might’ve been right about an awful lot. We are disastrous blobs of epic failure, who don’t understand the perspective of a 5 year-old who says something along the lines of, “Look at all of these things I get to try!”

If there’s one thing I’m learning as I get older, it’s that vulnerable and exposed is kind of my jam. Vulnerable and exposed is the way to connection and belonging, at least according to Brene Brown… and that girl knows some things. You guys, people who embrace their mess are FUN. People who embrace their messes live in a fun kind of world where failure is just a step towards their dreams. People who are openly messy are brave and inspiring… and yes… fun.

Friends, I might fit in better if I cover up all of the vulnerable places other people could attack, but fitting in and being truly accepted are two very different things. And if given the choice (we are) I choose being truly accepted over fitting-in every time.

Tales from I-70. Peeing in the Woods.

Photo by Ignat Kushanrev on Unsplash

Sit back and relax, friends, and allow me to regale you with a tale you are glad did not happen to you.

Yesterday morning, I woke early, as usual, to make the coffee, pack the lunches, and do the things. I planned on skiing, so I was able to forgo a shower and style my hair like Willie Nelson (2 braids and a headband-- It is functional on a CO Mountain. Stop judging me.) Because of said hairstyle, I had enough time to have a second cup of coffee. This was the day’s first mistake.

You see, there is but one road to most of the Colorado ski resorts, I70. If you’ve been watching the news, you know that the mountains are getting pounded with snow (YAY freshies for skiing) and there have been several avalanches crossing this beloved stretch of highway in the last week or so.

My friends and I figured that the worst had come and gone with I70 seeing 3 avalanches over the weekend, and Tuesday would be a great day for some sunshine and serious pow.  Well, dear ones, we made it up to Georgetown before we were at a dead stop.

There were signs telling us that Avalanche mitigation was causing 20-30 minute delays… Friends, if you know I70, you know this is pretty normal… not necessarily on a Tuesday, but… whatevs. If you like to ski, you deal with traffic. Anywho, there we were, three friends chatting away with kidneys functioning properly, filtering all of the morning beverages through the system and into the bladder…. Every second that ticked by was another drop dripping into my bladder… drip, drip, drip...

I couldn’t concentrate on the conversation I was having with my friend. I couldn’t finish my sentences. I couldn’t think about anything except how badly I had to pee. Friends, I have had 3 children come out of my lady parts, and I have Kegeled… but I was gonna burst, and I am no stranger to doing a squat pee in the woods.

We were at a dead stop, friends. Cars for miles and miles and miles. And you know darn well that they had nothing better to do than to watch for anything exciting happening. Well, by golly, I guess my need to pee outweighed my pride, because those trees looked soooo inviting. The more my friend talked, the more the trees beckoned… “Come here, child, let us semi-cover you while you relieve your aching bladder and everyone watches because we just can’t cover you that well.”

Knowing we had barely moved in over an hour, and we would barely move in who knows how long, I did it. I held my head high and I ran into the 2-foot deep snow in my boots and ski pants. I went as far back into the woods as I could hold it, pulled down my layers and felt sweet, sweet relief. I, of course, aimed my chubby white heiney away from the road so all that anyone could see would be a lady squatting in the woods, but as I squatted for an epic “A League of Their Own” length of time, I noticed a white truck that wasn’t creeping forward with the other cars. In the front seat of that white truck, I saw a phone pointed in my direction. And it stayed fixed on me as I helplessly continued to let the urine flow.

“Oh my God,” I thought, “there is a video of me peeing on the internet right now. I am going to be a viral pee-er. I hate cell phones.”

And I continued to pee and pee and pee and pee in the woods. On the side of the highway. “Aren’t you done yet?” I asked my lady parts, “Can we finish up here? We have an audience!” But my lady parts just continued with the business of urine removal for what seemed like a hundred years until I could confidently cover my oversized keister once again, and I scampered back to the car where my friends were waiting.

But… that wasn’t the most embarrassing part. The most embarrassing part was the fact that the white truck from Kentucky kept inching next to us then behind us then next to us then behind us for a very long time to come… but at least I could breathe while I hyperventilated from embarrassment.

So, dear hearts, if you happen to see a lady peeing on the interwebs, don’t laugh too hard at her. She was desperate. And friends? Within 5 minutes of my pee-tastic adventure through the woods, we must’ve seen 10 guys hop out of their cars to pee. (They didn’t re-open the road until 5pm, and this was at 10am, so those woods saw some peeing.) No brave ladies like me, and I am sure no one recorded those men peeing in the woods. Which is just totally sexist, by the way, Mr. Guy in the White Truck from Kentucky.

Because, Mr. Guy in the White Truck from Kentucky, my Grandma always told me a girl could do anything a boy could do… including peeing in the woods.  And she was right.