Let it Shine

I washed my floor today.
I washed my floor today!
I washed my floor today!!!!!

I realize this may not seem like a big deal to most people, but those of you who know about my experience with illness over the last several years can probably appreciate what a big deal it was to me.

[About the illness, for those who don’t know...... Someday there will have to be some writing done about this, including a post on this blog, but for now I have not really been able to write about it without either being completely detached or completely melodramatic. So I will give the Cliff’s Notes version and move on: For the last several years I have experienced a fairly severe form of inflammatory arthritis and as a result have lived with pain, fatigue, and stiffness pretty much every day. Now, back to the floor.]

In terms of knowing and respecting my limits, washing my own floor was not a good idea. I will pay for it in the form of a dull, throbbing pain in my hands and shoulder joints. I will wake up stiff tomorrow. And the floor will be so dirty by then that no one will ever know I did it. But just the fact that washing the floor seemed possible today gave me great joy.

As I swept and then washed (I am a proponent of the hands-and-knees method for washing, with a vinegar and water rinse applied afterward with a mop), the writer’s voice in my head kept thinking, I should write about this. The beauty of a simple tool. The angle of the broom that gets right into the corners, sweeping out whatever it finds there. Coming face to face with the floor where pad the feet of my children each day. Finally washing my own floor after years of having others do it. The way knees are perfect for, well, for kneeling on.

Then I thought, Give it a rest, Molly. Just wash the damn floor and enjoy it!

And I did. I really, really did.