Not Our Laundry

These days (the post-fire days), if you ask me how I'm doing, I usually say that I have good days and bad days. 

The truth is, I've had a lot of good days. Lots of days where I'm able to focus on the positives of our situation. I can get excited about renovations, feel like our lives are sort of under control, and feel remarkably grateful that things have gone as smoothly as they have.

Today, though. Today wasn't one of those days. Today was hard.

It might have started last night, when Dallin and I were sorting through clean laundry, and I didn't recognize any of the clothes. It was all so foreign, so...not our laundry.

Don't get me wrong: I can't tell you how much I appreciate all the clothes we've been given. It's actually overwhelming to be on the receiving end of so much goodness and generosity. People have just amazed me these past several days. But, you know...it's all so...different. Definitely different from the clothes I was putting away right before the fire started.

And there were other things today, too. We've finally found a rental house (yay!) so I had to make several phone calls switching over our utilities and everything, and even if I didn't bring up the fire immediately, it always came up somehow. They would ask if I was a current customer (yes, but...), or if I had a modem I could use (well...I'm not sure), or if I needed to cancel service at my current address (no, I don't think so. Well, maybe...what do you think?).

And I had to get a certified check at the bank, and had a lovely little conversation with the teller:

"Oh, is this for your rent?"

"Yes."

"Well, have you guys ever thought about owning instead of renting?"

"We do own. (Fire and rental house and blah blah blah.)"

"Oh, your insurance is probably going to give you a really hard time with all that."

"You think? Gee, thanks, that's exactly what I wanted to hear right now while I'm trying to keep two toddlers precariously balanced on your counter and also keep myself from bursting into tears."

And then I feel mad at myself for being mad at her. She didn't know there'd been a fire. She doesn't know what to say and what not to say to someone who's going through what I'm going through. Not her fault.

Is that it? No, there were some little things, too. Like Target being out of the vitamins I was looking for (I was tearing up in the vitamin aisle at Target, you guys. #lowpoint), and realizing that we're going to need incredibly basic things like a vacuum and trash cans in our rental, and 4 cars being ahead of me in line to get an oil change (enough to make me abandon that endeavor for the day), and Parker giving me a remarkably hard time about his shoes hurting his feet in the car, even though they were velcro and he could have easily taken them off himself.

I don't like being this negative. Like I said, I really do have a lot of good days. And the shining moments of today have featured really, really good people. who have called, or texted, or Facebook messaged, or whatever, to let me know they were thinking about me and are still more than willing to help. People can be the best, every now and then.

And tomorrow will be better, and we'll take another step forward, and hopefully I can check in again soon with some more positive thoughts.

For now, thanks for reading these ones, as emo as they may be. It means a lot to me that I have a place where I can get all this out, since saying it out loud results in a blubbery mess where my face used to be.

Love you guys.