Falling Apart

I was getting ready in the bathroom when he walked in with a look on his face that told me he wasn’t happy. But then again neither was I.

I should have reserved the tickets to The Matchmaker ahead of time. After all, Kyle was in this play and his parents shouldn’t, just couldn’t, NOT be there. Why hadn’t I thought this through better? Now we were having to leave nearly an hour before the performance even started just to make sure we were able to purchase general admission tickets.

As I hurriedly finished putting on my makeup, I could see hubby in the mirror just standing there looking at me. He had just gotten home from work and didn’t really have to change clothes if he didn’t want to but was he just going to stand there in hopes I’d hurry up? Maybe he wanted to say something. I turned around and asked what was bothering him knowing full well he couldn’t make me feel worse about forgetting to reserve the tickets if he tried. “Go ahead, give it your best shot,” I thought to myself.

“I lost my job today,” was what he said.

Well… that wasn’t expected.

That was last Saturday. The same day our downstairs bathroom faucet began to drip. Perhaps the bathroom was feeling our pain and allowing itself to give into the emotions that we hadn’t.

The reality of how much was lost in one swift blow continued to hit us slowly, kind of in fragments, each day that followed.

Monday we remembered it meant the loss of a full two weeks vacation pay. The same day, four tiles fell off the wall over the bathtub. Tuesday, no Christmas bonus to count on for presents. Five more tiles fell. Thursday, no demo allowance for the month along with hubby’s portion of the sales contest his team was about to win. Six more tiles and the toilet began to leak from the bottom. Bad!

Yesterday I went to the hardware store and picked up the washers, tile adhesive and grout we’ll need to put that room back together. I can do that, but not much more.

We’re walking by faith through this crisis. Our bathroom may be trying to show it shares our stress and pain. But there is no reason for it to completely fall apart, especially when we aren’t.