Choppy Days and Nights

Some folks have lives which are very boring to them, routinely the same day after day, night after night. My life has never, ever been like that. For others, like me, I share this post. It is not meant to gain sympathy, nor to complain about my life. It is just a factual post, showing that for some of us, routine is definitely not a part of our lives.

Even as a child, when my daddy went on benders during his alcoholic years, we knew that, if he was not home from work at 6 p.m., we would eat anyway. Mom would put us to bed, with our clothes on under the covers, and wait for him to come home. She'd wait until he passed out, then come upstairs quietly and gather the 3 of us up. Off we'd go, into the Philly night, a few blocks away to the bus stop, and go either to my grandmom's or mom's sister or my great-great-Aunt Kate's clear across the city. Mom did this so we'd get a night's sleep at least, and be able to function at school the next morning. Life was a bit choppy even then.

At 18, I met a fellow 7 years older than me, and I thought, mature. I'd only known him 8 weeks. Three years later, I had been holding 2 jobs while he rarely held one. Many's the morning I walked in the snow to the bus stop, took the bus and the subway to work, because he didn't feel like driving me in the clunkers he kept me co-signing for. Even with a strep throat, I had to make his meals between the two jobs, and do the laundry in our wringer washer. Yes, life was a bit choppy then.

After we separated, my own alcoholism kicked in. Life is never anything except choppy for an active alcoholic. Oh, I kept my jobs, and very good ones, but my secret life after office hours and on weekends led to an extremely choppy life.

When I sobered up around age 37, there were quite a few times when I took temporary work between permanent jobs, often for a year or two. Temporary work is far from routine. You enter a spot, filling in for someone who usually could not work rather suddenly, for one reason or another. At one point, I had to learn, rapidly and with no instruction, 8 different computer systems in 8 months (a different temp assignment each month).

Nowadays, I'm up at 6:30 a.m., take care of the elderly kitty and hit the grocery store if needed, do some things around the mobile home, make sure my nephew is up for work at 12:45 p.m, and then we're off to his job so I can bring the one vehicle in the household back for other needs. It's back out at 2:00 a.m. to bring him back, and into bed for me around 3:00 a.m.

In the midst of this, I do charity crafting, try to manage my online handcrafted products in my Etsy store, do a voluntary monthly mobile home park newsletter, and other things.

Yes, life is choppy. But I share these things for one reason.

If you, like me, lead a very untraditional life, please know that you are in my thoughts and prayers, prayers for all the strength, stamina, fortitude, and patience that you need to deal with each day and night. And know that I share your joy when you manage to accomplish some things at the end of your day (or night, or combo thereof), and are happily surprised that you did so.

Father, thank you so much for the grace and gifts you send to those of us with untraditional routines, with choppy lives. Thank you for not only trusting us to take care of what you need from us, but also for what we need to accomplish that.