I haven’t taken out the garbage in around fifteen years. Elliot is an employed college graduate, living in the big city of Lexington, Kentucky. Paul turned seventeen just last week. I can see previously delegatable chores once again on my own horizon.
No one has children for the chores. For every task that an offspring can handle, there is an equal and opposite mess created for a parent to figure out. Newton didn’t have children. If he had, the Law of Child Chaos would have been his fourth.
Still, even if no one procreates to ease the housekeeping burden, it’s nice not to take out the garbage. I’m happy that any time the trash starts to smell or the recycling fills up, I can just yell upstairs for Paul to come get it. I’m not sure I even know what the inside of our mini-dumpster outside looks like.
I’m about to know.
In the way of the world, it’s likely that Chris and I will be living on our own again within the next few years. We hope so. With neurodivergent kids, the launch is often not typical. But looking around my house now, if you were a betting person, you would bet that Chris and I will have an empty nest sooner rather than later.
So who is going to take out the trash? Who is going to mow the lawn? Who is going to switch the laundry from the wash to the dryer? Who is going to dust the baseboards before company comes?
Chris and me, that’s who.
I don’t like it.
Here am I — in my prime — and I’m suddenly going to start taking out garbage again?
This past Thursday was a beautiful, almost fall day. I decided to impulse mow the lawn after work. It was a school night, Paul had homework, and the rain had stopped. I had 3000 steps remaining to hit my step goal, and I didn’t want to stay inside with my workout videos when the sun was shining.
In between doing laundry and putting dinner in the oven, I mowed the lawn. I carved up some delicata squash and roasted it. I checked the care labels before tossing a blouse in the dryer. I marched all around lawn and cut the overlong grass, all after putting in a full day at work.
I felt good. I felt connected to my foremothers, all those ladies who made it through without modern conveniences. Forget about taking out the garbage. My grandmother had to burn her garbage. All those women in my family tree — widowed, farm wives, depressed, happy, hard-of-hearing, betrayed, Quaker-quiet, tough and weepy — had days like mine. They couldn’t imagine my life of flying around the country and talking about families. They could imagine the lawn mowing. They could imagine weed-pulling, which I did this morning.
Fall is here, and the zinnias have grown to shoulder-height. The stalks have turned black, and the seed heads outnumber the flowers. After several seasons of reusing the seed, I found this year’s zinnias are reverting to type. Next year, I don’t need zinnias with woody stalks. I don’t need them to be taller than me. I yanked and filled the wheelbarrow to a comic overflowing before hauling them around back to the compost.
The birds may be leaving the nest. I may have to take up once again the jobs I don’t enjoy. But here in midlife, perhaps I am also reverting to type: tough as nails and with the dirt on my hands to prove it.
