Toothpaste

I thought of a good topic earlier today but my really tired brain managed to forget it almost immediately. I woke up early this morning and couldn't get back to sleep for way too long. I got up and read for probably an hour. I also got up to walk but my partner didn't (it was very lightly raining) so it was a disrupted morning/night.

I remember it had something to do with taking chances. Oh yeah! I remember now that it really had to do with taking responsibility. And the first time I realized I had to take responsibility for my own actions involved toothpaste in the sink.

I had been married for a very short time, living away from my parents for the first time, and I noticed there was a glob of toothpaste in the bathroom sink. I didn't think too much about it, but when it was there the next day, I wondered why someone didn't take care of that. Then it hit me...I'M the one who should probably be taking care of that! (Now you can argue that it was a job that should have been shared equally with my new husband, but this was nearly 30 years ago and I was thinking like a dutiful wife.) Up until then, toothpaste in the sink had magically disappeared after a day or two. I knew it was my mother's doing, but I didn't think hard about the process. This time, I realized that I was going to be responsible for myself and my own toothpaste in the sink.

Oh my gosh! That's a rude awakening! I was lucky it was just toothpaste and not a bowl of potato salad on the kitchen counter or a gas tank on empty. The toothpaste made me realize that I needed to begin to pay attention and try to realize it when I needed to take action.

It sounds as if I grew up pampered and coddled. The truth is, we all had chores to do but we were told when to do them, how to do them, and when they were done to satisfaction. I didn't look around the house and decide it needed dusting or look at the flower beds and decide they needed weeding. I was told when to do something. When no one told me to wipe up the toothpaste in the sink, I just didn't think about it. It was a real change in mindset to have to tell myself to do things.

So there you have it. The old brain cells didn't forget after all. They just hid the topic from view for a while.