Musings about the Garbage Men

I wonder about the guys who drive our garbage truck.  Are they the same guys every week?  Do they remember all the houses they've been to?  Do they go to the same houses every week?  Would they notice if a house got a paint job, or the shrubberies trimmed, or a tree cut down, or gravel replaced?  Do they comment to themselves about the level of fullness of garbage barrels?
"Looks like 123 had a party this week - check out the pizza boxes and beer bottles."
"Yeah, one would think at the rate they have parties, they'd recycle that crap."
"Seriously."

Do they ever tell their coworkers about strange things they've seen?  "Dude, George, you should have seen the heinous mailbox at this one place!"
Or maybe, "Lucas, I gotta tell you, I see the same lady walking her dog every morning in this one neighborhood, and I swear, she carries a yellow parasol!"

Does anyone ever stand at their door step, or the end of their driveway, and wave at them as they go by?  Give them a big smile to say, "Thank you," because a shout wouldn't be heard over the truck engine?

I wonder how they'd feel if some gal in slippers and a bathrobe came trotting out of her house to the street corner carrying two paper travel cups and offered them coffee.  Or some guy lounging out front with a small bag of pastries, purposefully waiting to pass it off as they drove by.

That would probably violate some code of conduct at the garbage company, but still, it's a nice image.  Makes me want to go do something nice for someone, just because I can.

Happy Friday, y'all.
~CLynn

Dream 09/17/12

I had a dream wherein I was back at my high school, setting up for some event, and a person I know (but can't remember who) introduced me to two people I've never seen before, dream or otherwise.  They claimed to be siblings.  The sister disappeared early on, but the brother stuck around.  For reasons I don't understand, we suddenly had to try and escape, in a van, of all things, but we took a wrong turn and got caught on a bridge.  While trying to see a way out (and defend my cats, oddly), the brother said they were after him, and tried to leave, but I wouldn't let him.  I kept trying to find us, all of us, a way out.  He told me to leave him behind, but I refused.  I chose to stay.

As I recall, there was another person in the van with us, the driver, the same man I know but can't remember.  He restrained me while the brother voluntarily turned himself over to the people in the dark cars. He and the pursuers vanish, and I cried, know that somehow his memories of me would be wiped clean, and I'd never see him again.  I was so certain of it.  I even had vague memories of another place, of someone having their memories taking in that place, but it was in another dream, and I KNEW I was remembering a dream (and consequently acknowledging that I was currently dreaming), but still treating it as if it were reality, as if it actually happened, and that it was going to happen to him.

Then, I suddenly got a text on a cell phone I didn't know I had, and it had a printed record of our conversation (condensed, of course) - a printed record of me clearly refusing to escape.

I suddenly had hope that he'd remember, but all he asked was one question:
Why did you stay?

It was like a person who hadn't been there were reading an account of it and wanted clarification about my decision.

I had no answer for him.

And then I woke up.

I Can't Do It

While re-making my bed around midnight the other night, a story my mother told me about myself came to mind:

When my mom first taught me to make my bed, I wasn't much taller than the bed itself.  My arms were short and my muscles unused to the task.  I remember making great effort to pull the sheet up to the pillow, then walking around to the other side, taking great steps to avoid stepping on my other bedding, and pulling on the sheet on the other side, but something always happened.  The middle would still be wrinkled, or the sheet would be slanted, or I pulled it up too far.  (It seems my perfectionism started at an early age.)  I remember becoming very upset that I had to walk around my bed so many times for just the SHEET.  Goodness only knows how difficult the blankets and quilt would be.

From there my memory gets fuzzy, and my mom supplemented the details I don't recall.

Apparently, at that moment during my bed-making lesson, I started to cry, refusing to keep going.  When she asked me why, I said, "I can't do it!  It's too hard!"  (There were possibly other references to the largeness of my bed and how I kept stepping on my blankets.)

My mother said to me, "I know it seems big, honey, but if you do small amounts at a time, before you know it, you're done!"

Sure enough, if I looked at it in smaller pieces - like pulling up the sheet so it was even on one side, then walking to the other to tug it over and be even on the other side, THEN proceeding to pulling the blanket up - the task became easier for my child mind and muscles to handle.

This recollection took a whopping half second to flash through my brain, but I suddenly realized that I STILL have the same response to seemingly overwhelming tasks: "I can't do it.  It's too hard."

This response is most common when I end up being assigned a specific type of project for work, and I have to go through the process of breaking it down into suitable sized pieces so that I don't keep pushing it off and doing something else instead.  Before I've separated it into groups of related tasks, it seems so overwhelming that I refuse to look at it.  If I get too many at once, I've even thrown in the proverbial towel for the day and promised myself I'd tackle it first thing in the morning.

Which I never do.

I'm not sure what my point is.  Just sharing a moment of self-awareness?  Hoping to pass on wisdom?  Regardless, I was both amused at saddened by the realization.  Amused that I'm still so like how I was as a child, but saddened that I keep re-learning the same lessons over and over.

It also strikes me that in moments of frustration or sadness or loneliness, when simply existing has become the overwhelmingly huge task, I often make remarks or posts like, "Life sucks," or "I don't want to be an adult anymore," or "I want to go home."

Such things can often be cured by a hug.  Encouraging words are nice, but hugs are better.  Big ones.  That last a long time.

I need a hug.

Can I go home now?