The boys forgot their uniforms and emailed me while I was at work/Thrive. Would I be able to bring them to school somehow? The uniforms were in the laundry and they only needed them for pictures. I called Josh and asked if he could start the laundry and that I could bring their uniforms in to be there by after school. I would be home as soon as I was finished with my charting which I was very tempted to leave for later to do.

But I decided just to stay and do it. I heard the supervisor ask the desk girl if she could wipe down all of the surfaces today. One of the job duties for that position is to clean the building with the exception of the therapist offices. I saw the spreadsheet with the cleaning schedule, and even though it something I was perfectly capable of doing, there was a part of me that refused, and could not bring myself to clean for this man.

Like, as dumb as this might even sound, cleaning just felt too close to wifely duties. And I was not going to lower myself to that level and dust the shelves. Another time I was cleaning out the coffee pot after group, after Arya and I had made another pot during break. That was okay to me because it was serving the whole, and cleaning up part of my mess. He set his cup down at the sink and I thought about washing it for him.

I thought if I washed his cup that it might make him feel appreciated and connected to me. Isn’t that absolutely awful? I just left that cup sitting there and didn’t think another thing about it until later. Those couple of days when I was trying to make something work that just wasn’t, that whole experience taught me that I only clean for men I love. I will not clean for any others. It’s just part of my DNA now and that’s the way it is.

But for the ones I love I do it happily, like I am exactly where I am supposed to be. I took the clothes from the dryer and set in the front seat of the van. The boys called when school was over and asked where I was. I was parked in the parking lot folding their uniforms into individualized, neat piles. We met in the middle between the van and the school. I was so happy to see them, and after, to see my daughter only 9 minutes away.