random thoughts – Day 1,775 – (Saturday) – life cycles

There are many cycles of life. There are the obvious and sometimes exciting life ages/stages like infant, toddler, tween, teen, young adult, adult, middle age, old age. There are stages and milestones like pre-school, kindergarten, elementary-, middle-, and high school, maybe college, maybe grad school. There are various stages of career with entry level, mid-career, late career, mentor, retiree.

Then there are the daily cycles of life that regular people know all too well. The more people in a dwelling, the greater the possibilities. Domestic delights like the never-ending routine of dirty laundry. It piles up on the floor and/or in a laundry basket. It may be relocated closer to the washer and eventually into the washer, then move to the dryer where it may or may not sit for days. Maybe it’s folded and put away, maybe it’s folded and sits at a staging area en route to the closet and/or dresser. There is no judgement or finger pointing happening here.

And then there are the dishes, which might hang out in a bedroom, on a kitchen counter, on a table, and/or in a sink. As a teenager I had a habit of taking a large drinking glass of water or fruit juice upstairs to my bedroom each day. They might not find their way back downstairs until there were no glasses left in the cabinet and, inspired by a parental scolding, were finally brought back downstairs to go into the dishwasher to be washed. I grew out of my dishes in the bedroom stage when I moved out on my own and discovered how truly annoying it is to be engaging in a scavenger hunt for dishes and glasses.

Dish cycle - the sink stage.

Once the dishwasher is run, there could be a lag before it is emptied. Maybe it’s run after supper and not emptied before bed, then there isn’t time to do it in the morning before leaving for work so the coffee mug ends up in the sink. After work, the lunch containers end up in the sink followed by a plate from dinner and a salsa jar rinsed for the recycling and the evening tea mug and perhaps a water glass. There could be a saucepan "left to soak." This could go on for a couple days. Not a confession, just a possibility. Ok, maybe it’s a confession.

And that is adulthood for most people. Never ending cycles of laundry and dishes, plus the bonus rounds of grocery shopping, cooking, and cleaning. Ad infinitum. Ugh. Such fun being a grownup.