Eleven: Help...!

I don’t know why, but the past month I’ve felt completely overwhelmed. Things have been a little crazy at the restaurant. I have been used to—and perhaps even anticipated—business settling into a somewhat subdued late year pattern after the end of September. It gave me time to think about the holidays with my family, to play around with decorating the restaurant…to just slow down and remember I had a life outside the business.

Fortunately or un-, that is not happening this year. We are on track to do a record November, lord willing and the creek don’t rise. On the heels of a record October. I should be stoked, relieved, grateful…and I am. Still, I don’t much care for the corollary feeling that the rest of my life is getting the short end of the stick.

Due to the sooner-than-anticipated return of one of my flu-stricken employees, I was able to steal a few hours away from the restaurant this afternoon. I went home with the idea of accomplishing something in the way of catching up with the mountain of housework that has been left undone for months. And it was utterly intimidating. Everywhere I turned, there was something that was a complete disaster, had been a disaster for, I realized, months, and was likely to continue to be a disaster because I was not able to put more than about two hours of conscious, productive time together to direct at any task.

My bedroom is an earthquake, my bathroom is toxic and my closet is an explosion waiting to happen. Upon my kitchen counters are stacks of things that have literally been there since last Christmas. I don’t have to look too hard for the Christmas CD’s and movies I want to play…they never got put away from last year. And we won’t talk about the giant animal-hair-bunnies that are starting to look like the Bumble Snowman, or the dust so thick it resembles fire extinguisher residue.

I tried to distract myself from the completely out-of-hand household situation by looking outside at the yard, but that was no good. The patio furniture is scattered all over the lawn, there is a half-built greenhouse taunting me from behind the shed, all my potted plants are looking puny and pleading for me to put them away somewhere and not let them die in the cold, and the stuff that DID die in the cold last winter is still waiting to be cut back. There are tools and trash and empty wine bottles still lying around from pleasant summer evenings on the deck. (August was, what… yesterday?)

Everywhere I turned, I thought: “Oh, god, I can’t look at that…it will drive me crazy. I can’t think that (whatever it is) has been lying there for (however many) months.” MONTHS. And in some cases—like that of the half-built greenhouse—YEARS. Augh!

But, today…today, I DID round up my winter/holiday bed linens and get them installed in the bedroom. And I DID apply myself to the mountains of junk mail—both this year’s and last year’s (which had been relegated to a plastic basket stuffed under the china cabinet); got it sorted, trashed what needed to be trashed, and filed what needed to be saved.

So, for that, I am thankful.

AND for the local franchise of “Butler and Maid Service.” Who will be sending out a rescue party next Tuesday at precisely 1:00 pm. To dig me out from under this pile of...over-commitment.

A (wo)man’s got to know (her) limitations…