There you are Friday, with your rain and gray skies. Truly, enough with the rain. One beautiful park has been completely wiped out by flooding, along with homes, businesses, a church, and I know not what else. And all the efforts to assess damage did not need another weekend of rain, which is what we get to have. So, in the spirit of being complaining as much as possible, here are seven things I’ll probably do with another day of rain.
One
I will get more work done inside. This is always a treat in the sultry heat of deep summer—to spend time inside the house cleaning, sorting, putting things away, not sitting by a placid lake reading a book or puttering around the garden. Nobody needs to be outside, really. There are bugs and other terrible creatures, like moles and beautiful birds and little rabbits and deer. And who needs that when you can stay inside and go over the floors again with a now worn out broom.
Two
And gosh, paperwork. I can catch up on paperwork. There’s a nice big stack of bills I should sort through, and some receipts I should arrange into all their little boxes. I could clear out my desk drawer and finally really try to find that missing piece of paper about the insurance. I’ve been really longing to get in there and sort out my paperwork, so thank goodness for this perfect opportunity.
Three
I can also stare through the window at the rain and feel all the ennui of life. I can sort of drift from room to room and count up all the disappointments and failures of the last several years, and those stretching all the way back into childhood. I can make a cup of tea and let it stand there and become tepid, and then take a sip and realize that life is a fruitless proposition, and what’s the point anyway.
Four
I can bat down the complaints and languishing of a thousand children— No, you don’t need to be on a screen. I know you can’t really go outside, but you can read a book. Look at the lovely rain and read a nice book. No, please stop careening around the house with that wretched nerf gun. Maybe you should just take a walk in the rain. No, I know you’ll get wet and that will be annoying, but then you can wrap up in a towel. No, I know it’s too hot and humid to wrap up in a towel and now you’re just damp and angry. Why don’t you try out the book idea?
Five
I can keep binging on Jen Hatmaker podcasts while sorting through all those lovely bills, her upbeat, cross-less Christianity reverberating through the back of my skull. I need another day to let her voice wash over me in wave after wave, her cheerfulness reducing me into a shuddering, depressed, hopeless pagan.
Six
I can scroll through Facebook again. This will not make me panicky about all the stuff I haven’t done to get ready for school, and how I should totes have ordered books by now, and oh my word, how am I going to fit everything in every day, and look at that person’s living room, that’s gorgeous I should just burn my house and my life down and start over.
Seven
I can wander out with an umbrella and shout encouraging words to Matt as he labors over the roof, soaked to the bone, blocking every single tiny place that could be construed as an opening for a bat. And when he comes in I can feed him hummus and pita bread that I will have baked in between all the ennui, despair, paper-sorting, cleaning, and panic.
Well, there you are, 7 things I’ll be doing. Maybe you could do them too! But first go check out more takes.
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