Ordinary Life

My morning’s anticipation to sit, have coffee and then finish getting some packages ready to mail must not have communicated the message well with my body, because when I rolled out of bed…morning had just ended. Frustrated, I did sit with coffee, but chose the counter angle facing the dishwasher and munched on slightly burnt toast.

I finish and get started on the two different letters I wanted to include in the packages. Considering what I could or normally write, the letters were short and I aspired for my neatest penmanship, though I am not sure that is how I should describe my chicken scratches on precious notebook paper. 🙂

I look at the clock…I only have 45 minutes until we need to leave for my hair appointment and errands. I know–45 minutes–ordinarily, that sounds like plenty of time to get ready, but I don’t quite consider myself ordinary in that case. Especially not with extraness. Yesterday, unknown to me, I gave myself a deep gash in an already very bruised area of my front shin. If you want to understand how numb my legs seem to be, this explains fully: the deepness of my gash shows that it was no light love tap on the leg.

And I didn’t feel it–however, I am always running into things so ordinarily that maybe my mind just ignored the bump, because it is like routine. I am not sure, but by the time I noticed scarlet red, I had it all over my new bathmat, bathroom rug, left leg and foot. At least it happened in the bathroom, but still…extraness! And thanks to my blood thinner pills, it is going to take a few days for it to stop bleeding every time I get ready in the morning. My 45 minutes this morning were cut even shorter due to this and by the time Mom dropped me off for my appointment, I was trying to catch my breath (figuratively) and hold myself together as I had already had a breakdown when getting ready.

I don’t know if any others have experienced this, but it seems that on the days I get my hair trimmed or re-permed, in my view, quite possibly everything goes wrong before the appointment. After I get in the chair, glasses off and the “cape” around my neck, things start to change. My hair stylist here in town is my age but we live such different lives–honestly, all I know about her is that she is married, shops at American Eagle (from observation) and does wonders with my flimsy hair. And she listens.

Like everyone else in town who knew me when I first moved here, seeing me now is probably not as big of a shock as it is for those who haven’t seen me in a longer period of time. People in town have seen the slow (or fast paced) changes as they come. In a way, this is true for my lady friends at the hair salon, except I go almost two months at a time before I see them again. Sometimes there is no change; other times, there is…like the first time I came in using my walker. It is always out of concern that thy ask their questions, so it didn’t surprise me today when my friend asked what happened to my leg as she helped me into the chair.

Giving her a brief story, she gets started. The only time we have an “actual” conversation is when she is rinsing my hair, as it is the only time I really see her face to lip-read; anything past that is just me talking. I miss being able to chat while someone does my hair…not the gossip stuff or venting frustrations, but just life–ordinary life. Hairdressers are service professionals and I pay my friend to use her hands to keep my hair (and eyebrows, haha) looking nice. So I think–because every time I enter for an appointment feeling crummy, but leave in lighter spirits feeling grand in my newly trimmed hair–that her service is not just for my hair. Yes, it is her professional work..but I can’t see her serving so tenderly if she didn’t love what she does, if she didn’t have a passion for it.

It goes for anyone. As I was cleaning up from panting last night, I was frustrated! I can no longer waltz around grabbing paint tubes or canvases or paint brushes. Ordinary for me is now one-handed and the other using to hold for balance.  It is not that I have lost my passion for painting, per say. I think it is more a confused passion in life’s challenges that I have not embraced yet. I stare at them, much like last night when I faced the blank 48×36 canvas that I intend to complete by next week. Instead of aspiring excitement, I said, “How am I going to do this?” I ask that same question daily, so much that it has become so ordinary. And it can drain the passion I know God desires me to have–so I should stop asking “How?” because He already told me that I can.

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. ~Philippians 4:13