It’s messy

Birdie already knows that all good fairy tales– the ones where the rules are broken and reality is suspended and that pony can finally, finally tell you what’s on her mind–  all really good fairy tales start with “Once upon a time.” Those are the stories she really wants to hear these days. The ones where things are exactly how she wishes they were. A rainbow over every hill. Rivers sprinkled with glitter. Unlimited white bunnies that let you pat their ears without running away. Pink everything.

But even at three, Birdie already knows that whatever follows “once upon a time” isn’t likely to be true. It’s too fantastical. It’s fabulous, yes. It’s fun. But it’s not the way things really are. In the real world, rainbows only appear after a spring shower. Rivers are fast and wild and range from a deep, cold grey to a vivid blue flecked with foam. Bunnies are more apt to hide when they hear the excited footsteps of a preschooler. And pink is sometimes not an option on the table (although, by rights, it always should be).

Birdie gets that real life is real life. Puppies don’t talk. Elephants don’t fly. Little girls aren’t princesses just because they like tiaras.

My preschooler has already grasped that wishing and wanting something doesn’t make it so.

And yet …

Some days, I keep waiting for once upon a time. Only in my fairy tale …

…pictures can be painted without mess, and scissors don’t automatically mean a pile of shredded paper on the floor.

…dinner makes itself.

…someone else changes that poopy diaper.

…the laundry is never in need of folding.

…no dirt gets tracked in on the freshly-mopped floors.

…the table never needs to be cleared of books and puzzles and cards for Mamaw and Papaw just so a meal can be served.

I don’t need talking ponies. I just need domestic utopia. Is that really so much to ask?

You already know the answer. I already know the answer. It is. There is no perfectly perfect day. There is no waking up fully refreshed, showering leisurely, coming down to a fabulous breakfast prepared from scratch by someone who has no greater joy in life than serving you. There is no one to sweep the dirty dishes away, shoo you out of the kitchen, and let you spend an entire day reading “James and the Giant Peach” to your adoring children, who listen soundlessly, with rapt attention. There is no one to ready the ingredients so that you can have a dreamy baking session with your whole family; no one to clean up the aftermath, either. There is no one to cover you on every sick day, no way to make the inevitable dirty walls miraculously clean at the end of every day.

Life is messy.

Husbands, kids, friends, dogs. Laundry, dishes, stovetops. Scraps of paper, tracked in sand. Nicks in the linoleum. 2009’s paint choice. Doorbells that ring when the baby is down for a nap, cats that decide to show their devotion via a dead mouse love offering. Appliances that die.

This is not the stuff of fairy tales. But it’s the stuff of life. It’s the stuff that makes the good stuff better and the best stuff sublime. It’s the little bit of dust that shows off the clean spots.

Life is messy, yes. But it’s also painfully beautiful in a way we can only appreciate in contrast to the stuff that makes us roll our eyes or, on our worst days, throw up our hands.

Life is messy. But it is so, so good.