Two-Sock Life

Folding laundry the other day, I came across an all-too-familiar problem.  I think we've all encountered matchless socks in our baskets.  When I was growing up in a house full of siblings, they covered the bottom of the basket, several inches deep.  To sort through them was at once mundane and daunting.  Even though there are only three of us at my house and the single socks are only a handful after the folding has been done, it's always a vague source of frustration in the back of my mind.  If there are so few of us and it's so clear whose socks are whose and we all wear two socks every day, how do we come up short?

Perhaps the most maddening thing about it is that, as I put the unpaired few on my dryer, planning to keep a keen eye out for their matches, I know that their opposites are very likely somewhere else - in a drawer, on a shelf, or under a bed, likewise, waiting.  Disorganized as I am, I will probably never be able to round up all of those single, waiting socks, to fold them neatly together and say that my life is in order.

It's rather like my daily struggle to juggle my time just right - to read the best books, to continually learn  new skills, to keep my house clean, to provide healthy meals, to play with my daughter when she wants my attention, to actively participate in my community and in church functions, to plan and execute fun family activities, and to do a hundred other things that really ought to happen daily.  It's like the pieces of my life, which I can never quite get to fall into place the way I think the should.  It's like the woman I know I should be by now, rather than the one I meet in the mirror.  I often feel like I'll never get it together - my socks, myself, or my family.

But do you know what the funny thing is?  No matter how scattered I feel, I wake up every morning to a home that, if not tidy, is pleasant and sanitary.  Regardless of the time I never mean to waste doing mediocre activities, we always eat well.  In spite of my struggles to plan creative and memorable activities, my family rarely wants for quality time to spend together and we laugh often.  And although my laundry always comes up short of a sock or two, all of us have matching (or pretty nearly matching) socks to wear every day.

I was never good at juggling.  Others have tried to teach me and I have tried to teach myself, but even with the light, airy scarves, that take their time coming down, I could never keep all three in the air for long.  Through those misfit, lonely socks, I have found another little bit of inspiration to keep on trying.  Life is a longitudinal effort, an exercise in endurance.  I can hardly expect to wake up tomorrow as the with-it, together woman I often want to be, and to keep on being her every day and every moment, as long as I live.  I can hope and try to progress, just a little bit farther today, though, knowing that the more I strive for balance, the more the scales will be tipped in my favor.  And meanwhile, partially through my own efforts and partially through the heavenly help that I will always have and never deserve, I can trust that I and mine will always have two warm socks to wear.