Grace 2

Today I'm excited to post another great writing from our friend Grace. This one touched me when she first posted it and touched me again just as much the 6th time I read it. Enjoy!

Oct 5, 2006

dirty laundry

I was only joking when I said I would do my next post on laundry. Apparently, you all are fascinated by laundry. Therefore I feel it is my duty and honor to write a post about laundry.

First of all, what is it about dirty laundry? It's obviously dirty. It smells bad. There are stains. Dirty laundry can tell you a lot about a person. First of all, you can usually tell if it's a male or female. You can tell if it's a baby, child or adult. You can probably even tell if it's a teenager. If you dig further, you find out, what kind of perfume they wear, what kind of deodorant they wear, what they had for lunch or dinner.

If you look at my sons laundry, you would find lots of grass stains, every pair of jeans with a holes in the knees, lots of paint and marker stains, and always, always, always, you will find food stains. You will easily be able to tell what he had for breakfast, lunch and dinner. You most certainly will be able to tell that he plays sports. As with most little boys, you will smell that dirty dog smell that he so sweetly smells like after a hard day of play. Mixed in the laundry basket, you will find, army guys, hot wheels, Star Wars figures, and plastic toy guns. This is my son.

My daughters laundry is a whole different story. My daughter chooses to wear thongs. There has been great controversy over whether a good parent would allow their precious teen wear such a sexy piece of clothing. My short thought on that is...I can't stop her. She buys her own underwear, and she would wear them whether I said yes or no. She started wearing them before I even knew she wore them. Her friends would buy them for her. Since I'm pretty positive she isn't sexually active, I am not to concerned about the thongs. So, in her laundry, you would find thongs, you would find the hormonal smell of teen female. You'll find miniskirts and pink striped socks. You would also find secret notes from her friends. Notes about the worst teacher in the school, the cutest boy in P.E. class and (unfortunately) which girl in school is pregnant. Her laundry tells the story of her life. It's chaotic and grown-up, and it's little girly and sweet. It tells the story of a girl child trying to become a woman. This is my daughter.

Bossman has boring laundry. It's smells extremely manly. It has the occasional crumpled dollar bill, or a few stray coins. You might think the man was having an affair because you could easily find scraps of paper with a woman's name and phone number. Lucky for me, I KNOW better. These scraps of paper do give you a glimpse into his "other" life. Names and numbers of people that he talks to and comes in contact when I'm not around. This is my Bossman.

So, what does my laundry say about me? What would a person find out about me if they went through my dirty laundry? Would they notice my tigger tee-shirt with the holes in it that I got when I was pregnant with my son and I still love to sleep in? Would you notice the food stains that I always spill down the front of my shirt? What about the receipts that I always leave in my pockets? If you read those you would know what stuff I buy at the store. Like the tampons and the kitty litter. Would you notice that there is only one bra? Would you notice that I wear jean and tee shirts? Would you smell my favorite perfume, "sweet honesty"? This is me.

Laundry, like life, gets dirty. There are plenty of times when my life smells. Sometimes the smell is yucky, sometimes it's sweet perfume. Life also gets stained. Births and deaths, stain our lives in permanent ways. Ways that won't come out in the wash. Heartbreak and happiness, fade in and out of our lives just like the stains that we get out with a little "spray and wash".

If you took a look at my laundry 6 months or 6 years ago, you would have found something different than today. Laundry, like life, changes over time. Soon my daughter will have grown up laundry. Maybe she'll have the newlywed laundry. The kind with lots of sheets and towels. Maybe she'll have the laundry of a tired new mom with baby spit up on every one of her shoulders. Soon my sons clothes will get bigger. Someday he will have teen boy clothes. Maybe instead of grass stains, I'll find notes from girls. Maybe he'll leave his student id in his pocket. Maybe I'll still find some football sweaty clothes. Maybe instead of the dirty dog smell, I'll smell the hint of cologne. Maybe...

What will the laundry from Bossman and I look like in the future? I don't know. I hope it will have stains from graduation cake, stains from the wine at the wedding toast, and new grandbaby spit upstains. I hope it will still smell like sex and old spice, and sweet honesty. And maybe, if you look closely at the bottom of the basket, you might just find, mixed in with the clothes and socks and underwear...

The backscratcher that I once again hid from Bossman!

later.....