Dirty Laundry Blog by Jennifer Hynes

Friday Morning Light

I get myself out of bed.
I can feel the tightness across my back, neck, and head.
My stomach kind of hurts. My legs ache.

I remember I signed up for OT, then I remember — it’s supposed to be my rest day.

My wall is plastered with printouts of my schedule.

I rattle the dishwasher open, freeing my cup from clanking glass, tin, and white rubber-coated dish holders gripping it in place.

I put on the kettle and the toaster, another morning ritual.

Once my coffee is ready, I say to myself, “I’m just gonna drink this. I’m gonna have this. I’m gonna try to go to the gym.”

Next thought: “Maybe I’ll cancel the gym because it is supposed to be a rest day.”

I sit on the couch after trying to wake myself up with coffee and toast. It feels good. My kitty cat comes and lays by me. Everything is OK.

My son wakes up, comes and sits by me, and watches TV.

I can’t keep my eyes open and say to myself, “I’ll just rest my eyes for a few minutes and cancel the gym.”

I lean back and use my son’s blanket. I think about how I normally avoid my kids’ blankets — sticky with old food, snot, life — but at this moment that dirty blanket feels like the best thing I’ve ever touched.

I lay my head back, and it’s that kind of exhaustion where I’m so tired it seems like I can’t get comfortable. I decide to call in sick to work too.

Only after I finally admit I’ve hit a wall do I notice the morning light again. There is a slight breeze outside. Garbage trucks whoosh gently through the neighborhood, old brakes screeching somewhere in the distance while crows gather in the trees, crying out in that strange way they do before sunrise.

As the crows crow, I watch to see if my cats lift their furry heads toward the sound, but they don’t. They continue sleeping, ignoring it altogether.

My legs are heavy under my blankets. I sit in bed writing and worrying:

What about work?
What about the emails?
What about the people counting on me?
What about all the unfinished things?

I take a deep breath. I start trying to come to terms with my need to rest. And not feel guilty.

Yesterday after work, I took my daughter to the climbing gym.

I smell the climbing gym before I even reach it, passing the batting cages where I leave my son. Ropes hang high from above, dangling loose or attached to gravity-defying bodies. Soft, squishy mats sit beneath brightly colored routes with sculptural holds. Overhangs my daughter can do. I look at them and think I will never be able to do an overhang like that.

Voices shout reminders to the top floor of the cavernous space. A few teen boys launch themselves off bouldering walls with fearless bodies that still trusted gravity.

And there I was.

Middle-aged.
Exhausted.
But determined and proud of myself for sticking to the plan.

My daughter moved confidently across the wall, explaining routes, encouraging me, teaching me things. A quiet confidence I hadn’t seen before.

This morning I sat under the fig tree by the sandbox. I like to take my cats for walks down there. In summer, the blue jays leave figs ripped open, exposing red and green flesh warm from the sun. Figs lay across the ground in varying degrees of decomposition.

I can smell the sweet lantana blooming nearby. I used to bring my kids down to the sandbox. As the fig tree grew, it started giving us shade.

I would write out there and draw in my notebooks while the babies buried trucks and played with water, making mini lakes.

Now the sandbox is mostly used by cats.

The fig tree’s branches are thick and strong. The leaves overlap and make a beautiful, soft rustle in the wind.

Every year the leaves fall.
Every year they return.

It’s always been one of my favorite places on earth.

This week stretched me thin.

Professionally.
Emotionally.
Physically.

This is what I needed today. To rest under the fig tree.

The jasmine is blooming outside.
The crows are still arguing in the trees.
My arm still hurts.
My body is tired.

I can feel parts of myself returning.

The artist.
The writer.
The woman who once painted during nap times because making something beautiful felt necessary for survival.

I don’t have a polished ending for this.

Only fragments.

The smell of chalk dust.
The sound of crows.
Morning light through a cracked bedroom door.
Teenagers laughing.
Cats wandering in and out of the house.
The fig tree growing quietly while none of us noticed.

And somewhere inside all of it, the realization that a meaningful life may not be about balance at all.

Maybe it’s about returning.
Again and again.

To the people you love.
To the work that matters.
To yourself.