Clean Your Plate

A couple of weeks ago I came home from work to find my mom cooking spaghetti at 8 o’clock in the morning. When I asked her why she decided to wake up so early to make spaghetti for breakfast she said, “You said it’s been a long time since I made spaghetti. Now you can eat before you go to sleep.” It goes without saying that I love my mom. Not just for the reason that she does stuff like this for me, but because she always inadvertently teaches me life lessons without actually teaching.

My mom’s spaghetti is amazing. This batch, in particular, was so good and my night at work so busy, that I decided I was hungry enough for seconds. When I took a mound of it from the serving bowl my mom glanced over and said, “That’s too much.” I looked at her and laughed. She obviously underestimated my appetite.

Sure enough, a few minutes later, I was left with half a plate full of spaghetti. If this were 10 years ago, I’m positive my mom would’ve given me an I told you so, and wouldn’t have let me eat the ice cream in the freezer until I finished whatever was left on my plate. Lucky for me, I’m now 23 and have a pair of dogs at home that look forward to my mom’s cooking. Half an hour later I was in my room enjoying a bowl of chocolate malted crunch.

I’m sharing this story because around the same time, one of my good friends asked me why I hadn’t written anything in awhile. If you know me well enough, or have been reading my posts, you’d already know that 2012 wasn’t exactly the easiest year for me. I had a lot of things going on and I didn’t quite know how to handle it all (that’s what she said). One of my ex-girlfriends used to hate the fact that I never talked about my problems or told her what was bugging me. I guess I just figured that everyone had their own problems, so why bug them with mine? 

It got to the point that where I had bottled up so many problems that I had trouble sleeping at night. I was restless. There were days I’d be lucky to get an hour of sleep. Eventually I turned to writing and figured I’d might as well bug the internet with my issues. I got things off my chest. Even though my problems didn’t go away, it felt good to vent. Sometimes all you really need to do is take a step back and talk about what’s going on in order to get the clarity you need to get to the solution.

I wrote a lot last year. I took a look back at my posts earlier tonight and there were more than I wanted to read. I don’t normally reread my posts because I don’t care to relive whatever it was I was writing about. I wrote about very personal things; trying my best to let out old feelings, thoughts, and emotions.

I wrote a lot last year because I had a lot on my plate. Every time I felt like I had cleared out a good amount, my plate took on more food. It felt insurmountable. It was my Everest. But eventually those old feelings, thoughts, and emotions began to run out, so I wrote less frequently.

At some point, after you’ve done all you could and cleared as much as you could, you let God take the rest so that you can rest.

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P.S. for those of you there tonight and wondering.

I’ll admit it: tonight’s dinner was a little weird for me. I didn’t end up finishing all of my food, but at the very least I can say my plate is clean.