Why you should never take your ordinary for granted

It’s easy for life to start to feel small.

To feel caught on a hamster wheel of wake up, breakfasts and packed lunches, a load of laundry, the dishes from last night, vacuum, work, write, tweet, connect, call, walk to Kindergarten to pick up kids, panic about dinner, serve it, wipe down counters, wrestle pajamas and tooth brushes and last sips of water until the wonder of 9pm arrives and a few hours of stolen time for me and him and trying to breathe creativity into the tired.

Yes, wheels within very ordinary wheels is how many days can feel.

Until.

Until someone you love gets a diagnosis you hate.

Someone who is woven into your story so tight you can feel the tug when they move.

Or maybe it’s when someone loses a job or someone’s spouse walks out or someone spends painful time on the inside of their daughter’s rehab.

Then ordinary cracks right down the middle.

And when you wake up it’s to that sense of displaced unease that has you feeling along the edges of your memory until it hits you before you even open your eyes. Yes, yes it’s still going to be as broken today as it was yesterday.

I got up every day the last two weeks and made toast or bagels or bowels of honey nut cheerios for the kids and every day part of me was watching it all unfold, unable to accept that ordinary can trickle through our fingers when we least expect it.

Ordinary is the gift we take for granted until it’s the woobie that someone’s trying to steal. Like my favorite Detroit Lions sweatshirt or ratty yellow blanket or dog-eared book inherited from my mom.

Ordinary is where the DNA of our lives is housed.

And when it’s threatened for those we love, we start to linger over our own ordinary Cheerios-crushed-underfoot moments.

Zoe took her first steps this week.

Right there in between the art easel with the cracked leg and my old Ikea desk. She stood up, swayed, flashed her dimples and took three steps into my arms. No one saw it but me and Jesus.

The whole world caved in. Or maybe it sang. I think there was an angel chorus; surely it was more than just the singing Elmo.

The joy, when it comes in the midst of the ordinary we’re remembering not to take for granted, can overwhelm. I cried so hard, Zoe and I were both surprised. I clung to my little 11-month-old life preserver.

Everything about her screams, “life!”

How her hair smells of cinnamon and her body like crackers and baby lotion and maybes. She walked and our playroom was a Thursday temple.

Tomorrows will come and cracks will likely spread but I am anchored by my ordinary and I’ll take all the Cheerios underfoot I need to remind me.

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