The Life of a Mediocre Juggler

I'm not a terrible metaphorical juggler.

(I'm an awful literal one, but it's not a skill set I'm all that sorry to miss out on.)

But as a word picture to describe how I am at keeping all the proverbial balls in the air? I don't stink. I'm not exceptional, like most of my friends appear to be - I can't, say, juggle flaming batons while riding a unicycle across a tightrope (this is how I see anyone who has more than one child or works a full-time job or has a clean house not just when they're expecting company*). I don't do swords and I don't do any kind of fancy behind-the-back-under-the-leg tricks. I can't even juggle more than two or three balls at a time, if I'm being honest - but I feel like I'm consistently trying, consistently doing the basic throw-catch-throw-catch-throw-catch...

This week, I dropped all the balls. All of them. I lost my debit card, first of all, and in looking for it discovered that I'd also lost Sullivan's health card. This made me extremely anxious - what other cards were in my wallet that aren't anymore? And where did they go?

And then I locked myself out of my car, downtown, with Sullivan in my arms, five minutes before nap time, only a few hours before we were supposed to leave town for a funeral. I was supposed to be down there getting my debit card replaced (I forgot to, in the end, and went a solid week without any money). And then I tried to call Barclay for help and my phone ran out of batteries before I could tell him where I was (other than "downtown"). Upon arriving back in town after an exhausting weekend, I completely forgot about an important commitment and a coffee date. My kitchen piled up with plates and pots and pans and mixing bowls, and dust bunnies began to burst forth from every nook and cranny - the large, cranky kind of dust bunny, the kind with teeth and claws. They did not come bearing chocolate eggs in pretty pastel baskets. Suddenly, I discovered that we owned all of the clothes in the world and they were all dirty, overflowing from laundry hampers I didn't even know existed. All the weeds in the yard began to rally together in an attempt to overthrow me and, indoors, Sullivan's toys did the same. I suspect there may have been some communication between the two, an alliance, if you will. That's what I get for opening the windows to let some fresh air in.

To top it all off? I had a book deadline on Friday, but in my head it was Sunday. I got a text from my boss (heyyyy, Ashlee) on Friday night at 10 pm, all like, "Hey, Suzy, where are all these thousands of words you said you'd send me?"

I was like, "What day is it, even?" She was super kind about it, and I made it by the skin of my teeth (ew, what a terrible expression), but still. It was dumb of me.

Such is the life of a mediocre juggler, I guess. Picture it with me: We're some kind of street troupe, all busking together on a sidewalk. My friends are throwing swords and kittens and full glass jugs of milk in the air while simultaneously standing on their heads and jumping rope and eating breakfast. And then I'm there with three squishy red balls on the ground in front of me, looking terribly confused. That's the state of things right now.

And now you may be asking yourself, "What is the point of this blog post other than a shameless cry for pity?"

There is none. Please pity me. That's all.


* This week, I asked Sullivan to help me clean the living room and he said, "Why? Are we having company?"