The Athens library doesn’t open until 10. One of the boys asked if we could stop there sometime to look for a book. Library time was one of the casualties of Covid. I saw the nicer library lady in the grocery store not too long ago. We passed each other in the frozen foods aisle but I don’t know if she saw me. You look away and keep walking.

But I’ve got to make sure our card is up-to-date which I’m almost certain it’s not. Something has gotten off in our morning routine where the boys aren’t getting school until well after 8. Before, if we left at 7:37 we were pushing it but still good. Lately I turn on the car and it’s 7:50’s. One used to care more but I think he’s just accepted it now.

In the middle of the kitchen this morning it hit me, I had to ask, “Is everyone doing okay right now? Is anyone suffering silently and needing to talk or not saying anything?” I’m going to school for mental health and kids are apparently struggling for all kinds of reasons. And teens, and young adults, and the list goes on all the way up life’s stages.

“Mom, if we were, we’re not going to tell you right now”, she said. In the middle of making a sandwich or me filling in another downstairs on what the after school and dinner plan is. I’m trying to be courteous. People in general like to know what is happening. Dad’s going to Nashville for chapel in the afternoon to talk about camp.

This morning I was sitting up on our bed, the morning light now growing. It’s my favorite light to be seen in and I had been seen in it. But not long after the other feelings were back. I was looking at the floor, at the piles of my clothes in front of the still fairly organized bookshelf. The tipped over paper bag of mail that I’d moved for company.

“Why is it”, I asked, “that these piles just stay here, and I can hardly make myself engage them.” It didn’t used to be this way, I went on. There are too many podcasts and gurus out there who talk about email strategies, routines, and deep work. About your outward environment being a sign of what the inside looks like. If things are a mess then you are.

Why is this my standard for having things together? I hardly even listen to that stuff now. He does. “I feel like I used to be able to do it, and now it’s like I don’t even see it.” I did want an answer, but if I haven’t figured it out by now, I didn’t think there really was one. All the years of closet cleaning and thinking once I get it this way then I’ll be happy.

“You’ve got a lot more things going on now”, he said. I think I stared a little longer, then turned around, aware that something had just happened. “That was a very empathetic thing to say”, I said to him, “Thank you for saying that.” It did mean a lot. “You’re welcome”, he said. Driving back from taking the boys I thought, “I’ve got my own style.”

For some it’s Bohemian, and for others it’s Chic, or Classic, and I really am not that informed to be saying. Mine is “Whatever I’ve got”, and it works. Why is being put together outwardly the sign of having it together inwardly? How about if you, for the most part, have inner peace? Or if you’re generally at rest in home and relationships?

Deep down I think we know this, that it’s the inside that counts. And that’s not to discredit the value of wisdom or the insight that the two, the inward and outward, are somehow related. But even true wisdom isn’t everything, and there are even greater insights than those. So I was satisfied enough to keep on going, and I didn’t doubt it.