A lotta' bit messy

I am surrounded by a mess.  As I sit on this cozy, faux leather couch, I scan the floor.  Pillows from last night's camp-out strewn about.  A catalogue from work, which I gloss over frequently when a customer calls.  Remote controls, coffee mug with luke-warm java, un-opened mail....

There is a towel on the floor.  After a shower last night I wrapped my hair in said blue towel.  As the Mr. and I cuddled up under a blanket, this blue towel slowly unraveled.  There is cat medicine on the railing, a reminder for me to ensure Trouble gets it.  There is a paper napkin on the floor, which we accidently left there after our gourmet dinner, complements of Del Taco.  I will get to tidying up this mess soon enough.  This is what I do on the weekends, after all.  And I enjoy it, so I'm not complaining.  I often ask Lloyd how it is that 2 people can manage to stir up such a mess.  But we seem perplexed by it all.  Like, literally so confused how the mess we have managed to create has come about.  We can stare at the mess and delineate who did what.  That cup is yours, those dumbells are mine, that blankie was last cuddled up under by both of us....

But does it matter? It does, I guess.  Well, no.  No, it doesn't.  It matters if someone unexpectedly stops by. But that rarely happens.  Do people really mind, anyway?  Would people think less of me if they knew we liked to pretend we were on vacation in our own home?  If we tossed aside our messes as we created them, somehow expecting a chamber-maid to come with the sunrise and pick it all back up? 

One of the things Lloyd and I like to do together is nothing.  We like to come home after work, share stories of our day, sit under a blanket together and fight over the remote control.  We love the nights when our shows come on, or a new movie has come in the mail.  And my husband will whip up some dinner and most of the time we will carry that dinner up to the loft with our big-screen t.v.  We will hold our warm dinner plates and pass the ketchup bottle. 

I know we should sit together around the dinner table. Some might say it is important to be able to sit together and create these homely, familial traditions.  But, this is ours.  For now anyway.  Our nightly ritual involves us eating away from the dinner table.  The table that is so pretty and has the good China sitting on it, waiting to be used.  Our nightly ritual includes leaving the couch blankets unfolded when we finally retreat to the bedroom.  Our ritual means we might gather the day's mail, but it will sit next to the couch, un-opened, until an undetermined day.  Our ritual means losing the remote control, and searching for it until we realize it had been lost to the nether-regions of this faux leather couch the night prior.  It means waiting for the cats to come see what we're up to, and cuddle up beside us.  I will reach to the railing and grab my cat's medicine.  I will administer said medicine, because it is so conveniently located.

And the next morning or the weekend ahead will see me picking these messes up.  These bits of evidence that suggest a family lives here.  This evidence of us enjoying the nights in our home.  The evidence of us and our nightly rituals.