When things get too overwhelming, and I feel I can’t wrap my head around it all, I go to my happy place…decorating my sister’s home. I don’t want to decorate my home because that is boring and stressful. Arranging for Jose to paint the boys’ closet is dull and not what I consider decorating. Scheduling someone to hang the pictures that are sitting on the floor of my office reminds me I have to decide where they will go…which makes me want to cry. Gluing the mirror pieces that have fallen off the arches in my garden means I must first go to the 5 & 10 and buy Superglue. The idea of having to go to the 5 & 10 to buy Superglue makes me want to throw myself on the floor in utter despair.
Decorating my sister’s home, however, is easy and fun. I can spend a good on-line -hour picking out wallpaper for her bedroom without ever having to worry about paying for it, having it delivered or arranging for someone to hang it. Also, since she hasn’t asked me to decorate her home and doesn’t even know I’m doing it, it all stays comfortably in my imagination where I don't have to put out any real work or effort.
I don’t know why other people’s problems and chores seem so much more manageable than one’s own. Angelica once brilliantly suggested that we should get a group of women together and one day a month march around Pacific Heights doing each other’s chores. Micki would glue my mirror pieces back on, and I would fill out her insurance forms. Barb would organize Angelica’s jewelry drawer and Angelica would power wash the front of her house (a sore spot since the divorce). I would happily fill out five years’ worth of someone else’s insurance forms rather than go to the 5 & 10, buy Superglue and glue mirror pieces back on my garden arches. I can’t tell you what I’d do if someone would just occasionally check my boys’ school’s on-line-portal.
I have nightmares about that on-line-portal. The on-line-portal has become the only thing standing between me and happiness. It seems to be a problem only I suffer from as other parents seem to be checking it like nobody’s business. If I have a question about anything they ask me if I have “checked the on-line-portal?” No, and I haven’t checked the Korean Central News Agency either (would probably be a lot more simple).
As it stands, I guess I will have to figure out a system for on-line-portal checking, super-gluing and hanging pictures. And if you say I am lucky these are the only problems I must deal with then I would like to show you the sad state of my stuck together fingers after trying to manipulate a tube of Super-Glue.
