“Baby, you’re a wreck.”
Truer words were never spoken.
At the time, I found it amusing. Not that I’m a wreck, but that someone would notice and say it out loud. But, I have to admit, it was less and less amusing with every repitition.
It was a Tuesday night and Ms.NewGirl was over for the first time. It was an evening of apple pie and pizza and roommates and dogs. A test, of sorts, to see if she was up to me. My house is a disaster. I don’t say this lightly. It really is. Imagine, if you will, a house that was once mostly orderly and only slightly cluttered. Now, picture what happens when the sole occupant slides into a deep depression with little motivation to eat, much less clean. Add to that a steady stream of papers, legal and otherwise, junk mail, and magazine subscriptions. Getting a good picture? Great, now, factor in one guy trying to scrape the last remnants of a life he’d just as soon forget into one room so the movers can haul it all away, only to find out that those movers aren’t ever coming. But, wait, there’s more! Add to that a roommate and a dog. What do you have? Yeah, a wreck.
I know it was just her way of telling me to get that junk out of the house so she wasn’t faced with that part of my past everywhere she looked, but I can’t blame her for that. Hey, I’d rather not be faced with it, either! But, it’s there. Both the Augean-Stable-like clutter and the past. She may not have to face it, but I do. Every day. But, you know, who I am today is a result of who I was then. It’s not good or bad, really, but it is a fact. The man I strive to be is built on the wreckage of the mistakes I made, the poor choices and the bad behavior. Who I am today is not who I was because, today, I choose not to be that guy. And that choice is pretty important. I choose to be who I am. I make choices that have consequences and take me places. Hopefully, different places than I’ve been or would have gone in the past. So, there’s no point running or hiding from any of it. I just have to get started on the wreckage that sticks out where folks might trip over it.
So, that’s what I’ve been doing the past couple weeks. I’ve been working on it. I mean I’ve been really working on getting my house in order.
