Is it as true for you as for me that the exceptional is often easier to handle than the everyday?
Give me a crisis and I'll spring into action, fueled by adrenaline and, if I'm honest, the self-serving promise of valor. A fine mess is fine, spectacular failures are spectacular, but what about the ordinary messes, the daily failures? Give me a baby in a burning house, and I'll save her, but it's so hard to schedule volunteer work.
Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples, for I am sick of love, sings Solomon, but then there's the glass to wash and the knife to sharpen. And it's not just love I'm sick of, but also bills, inboxes, dusting, weekly status meetings, and don't get me started on laundry. Our little walk-up havens have a great asking price, but oh Lord, the maintenance will kill you. Expensive dogs and ice dancers get medals, but mutts and commuters have the harder job. We're asked to remain loyal when our friends are unlovely, and to just keep showing up. Valiant straphangers, when you head into work next week, stick a number on your chest and demand applause. You've earned it.
Photo credit: dishes time by miss pupik via flickr
© 2009 Apartment Therapy
Shannon, You have brought Chekhov to mind "Any idiot can face a crisis - it's this day-to-day living that wears you out." Bring on the next crisis.
Generally, I agree: crises are more easily handled than everyday annoyances. Still, I have a full-blown crisis at the moment; I had SAD all fall and winter, as well as a difficult summer. Thus, I'm now trying to clean up and sort out my apartment. Unfortunately, it's a bigger task than I can currently handle.
The large crisis I am dealing with is making my small apartment functional AND attractive considering that both my husband and I live here. Would that I could come up with a decent solution vis-a-vis furniture placement. Maybe once I finish cleaning out the unneeded items, I'll feel better.
That has always been the case for me. I recently had to move out of an INSANELY cheap sublet-a one bedroom on the upper west side to a studio in Washington Heights. I handled the logistics of the crisis while it was happening very well-now I'm left with feeling like I can't handle the adjustment.
That is such a great posting...because I have been thinking that for awhile now! It's great to see it summed up so well!
Woe is us. I thought I was the only one.
Wish I could stay on top of the maintenance, so I could get to the creative. Maybe because I'm too ambitious - work, classes, art projects, apt., weekend house, cats (can't even vacuum the apt.!) and move the car three times a week.
Do I want too much, should I simplify, or maybe more yoga to help me focus? Or Medication...or someone to slap me upside my head, tell me to count myself lucky, rich (by world standards) and JUST DO IT.
Well, brooding is very low-impact, I'll stick with that for a few more days...
Hey, life savers thank you and I thought I was the only one...
All the best to you who buy flowers in the dead of winter, care about not dusting, and still realize that yes, we are a preety wealthy... lucky bunch by the worlds standards.
OK, did one small task this morning. Cleaned the bathroom mirror w/Windex and cleaned the television screen and the glass surface it sits on w/Windex. Total time-3 minutes. (CRT screens get REALLY dusty.) Result? sparkly.
(Do not use windex on LCD screen, however.)
My sediments exactly.
I let the apartment "go" while writing, with the result that the chaos reached the pitch where you say "heck with that" and move the furniture.
It's still utter chaos, but at least now I have both a new perspective and an excuse.
Out of clutter, find Simplicity. From discord, find Harmony. In the middle of difficulty lies Opportunity.
-Albert Einstein
I don't think someone who knows all of the answers - somehow figuring out how to maintain a clean apartment, and balance family, career, and art - has ever warmed me up to them.
I'd rather know the ordinary. Those that fail at times.
Very lovely post. :)