Throwing in the Towel On Election Day

I am not a quitter.

Never have been.

Not when I had to read William Faulkner in my junior year of high school and couldn’t make heads or tails of “Absalom Absalom!” After three passes.

Not when it came to geometry, trigonometry, actually all but the most basic, entry-level math and not in middle school when I came in next-to last in every 800 race I ran.

Even when it looks like things are the darkest, like they won’t turn around, you — me, all of us — have to keep hope and have to keep fighting. It might seem like the world is on fire, engulfed in hatred and confusion and divisiveness … but you have to soldier on.

You just have to.

Even when I feel like I’m banging my head against the wall, I’ve kept going out of that desire to raise the bar and set a good example for my kids.

Except, it’s because of my kids that I’m officially throwing in the towel. I finally have to admit defeat.

Despite my Herculean efforts, despite the guilt trips, the pleading, the bribing, it’s just not going to happen. Ever. No matter how hard I try. So, I give up. I’m calling it. I’m never going to have a tidy house, I’m never going to get my kids to be neat.

The final blow wasn’t the repeated abandonment of sweaty socks on the coffee table or discarded shirts left in a crumpled heap on the playroom floor. Or even the hunk of blue, Irish Spring Moisture Blast soap shrapnel compressed into a heap and oddly left for days on the toilet tank.

It was this.

 

 

That is a clump of hair that someone pulled from the bathtub drain. Instead of tossing this nastiness into the trash, it was stuffed in a drawer. Right next to the trashcan. Seriously. 

It’s OK. I think I can still continue to live a relatively productive, happy life with these slobs. It can still be full of love and laughter. It just won’t be especially clean.