Unpacking

I've had difficulty downloading photographs today, which is bothering me well beyond what is a proportionate response. I sit here, staring at the little circle as it goes around and around, waiting.

This is time I could sit down with my Diet Pepsi and read the Post. I could pray or meditate.  I could watch something mindless on TV or write thank-you notes. I could cook up the sausage for tonight's lentil soup. I could nap.

Instead, I sit here, watching a circle go around and round, gritting my teeth.

I get up. If it's this hard to download photographs, I daresay God  is telling me to step away from the computer and do something else.

I decide to mop the floors. Sometimes being productive makes me feel better. Call me Pavlov's dog.  Another biscuit, please.

After mopping the floors, I feel less like Martha Stewart and more like Betty Friedan. It's just drudgery, and it'll have Goldfish crackers and blue play dough on it by six this evening.

Yet, for this moment, as I sit here in my warm kitchen, listening to the wind howl and the soft breath of Joel sleeping on the monitor, my floor is clean. I have this moment to unpack my feelings like little Russian nesting dolls, and figure out what is going on in this spiderweb of a mind.

So let's unpack it, already:
I feel like I should be doing something significant in my life.
I'm worried about Joel's surgery this Friday.
I'm sad that my friends are moving away. 
I'm also sad that we're giving away the high chair and that we already gave away the rocking chairs.
I'm sad that I will never have a daughter.

Mostly, though, I am disappointed that I am unable to download my photographs, thus denying you the opportunity to read "Houseplants I have Loved." Because that, dear friends, was where this post began its circuitous route.

Ah, well. My floors look fantastic. There's that.