Finding the beets upside-down in the vegetable drawer first thing in the morning, their bright red juice settled into the cracks, almost did me in.
"I'm always cleaning up messes," I grumped to my husband. "I've been doing it forever."
After pulling out the whole drawer, taking out the veggies, some salvageable and some crimson-stained and headed for the garbage, and using lots of those precious Lysol wipes and paper towels (I still have PTSD when I use them), I looped back to what I had just said.
"I'm always cleaning up messes. I've been doing it forever."
Nothing is truer for a mom.
Physical messes.
Poopy diapers that have somehow gone all the way up the back.
Legos strewn all over the family room floor.
Throw-up because of a teen's poor choice.
Dishes in sink from 20-something's midnight cooking spree.
Emotional messes.
Toddler tantrums because of God-knows-what.
Tears over mean middle school girls at lunch tables.
Hearts broken by first crushes.
Dreams shattered over college rejections.
As I plopped down on my office couch, something hit me like a ton of bricks.
What about my own messes?
The ones that I try to hide as best I can?
The kind that leak out and get all over?
The messes I don't have time for because I'm cleaning up everyone else's?
What about those?
If I cover them up, they'll still be there.
If I don't turn them right-side-up, they'll keep leaking and getting all over.
If I don't make space to clean them up (and for me in the process), they will just keep adding to the other ones I didn't clean up yet and so on and so on and so on.
So yup.
What about my own messes?
What can I do about them?
Unhide. Uncover. Do it any which way.
Tell a friend.
Pray to the One who loves me.
Write it down.
Turn them right-side up.
Get much-needed help.
Talk to a counselor.
Go on some meds.
Make space to clean them up. Whatever it takes.
I am a priority.
I have permission to take care of me and clean up my messes.
I am allowed to love myself.
So yup.
Moms are the mess cleaner-uppers.
Always have been.
Always will be.
And the most important messes we will ever clean up are our own.