Magic In A Cup

If I had three wishes this morning, they would be:

My kitchen would always stay clean.
My social calendar would always be full.
My life would never change.

Of course, that third wish would completely cancel out the first two.

My kitchen never stays clean. Seriously. The only time it looks spotless and fresh off the page of a magazine is between the hours of 10-3pm and then quite possibly for a full hour after the supper dishes are done. Cabinet doors are always left open, empty cereal boxes sit on a shelf, and drained orange juice containers sit on the counter right above the trash can. Like six inches. I will never figure that one out. Or the empty cereal boxes inside the cabinet. These are the little things that drive me crazy.

My social life is non-existent. I don't have lunch with friends. I'm not in any clubs or on any committees. I am a homebody. The biggest thing added to my life lately is a new walking routine that a friend and I are doing. And I wouldn't even call it a routine, more like when we are both home at the same time kind-of-thing. I enjoy it just the same, though. My evenings typically consist of running interference between the three kids or transporting a desperate reader to the library for a new book. Any type of break from that is a welcome break.

I was talking to myself this morning after I dropped off the kids at school. Grumbling about open cabinet doors and wasted gas and how I am not picking up anybody's underwear even if their girlfriends are coming over tonight. I put my planned grocery store trip on hold so I could come home and breathe and find that magic that somehow exists in the first cup of coffee. The cat followed me out to the screened porch and watched in fascination as I grumbled even more while shaking pollen from the cushions. While the coffee was brewing I plopped down and looked around.

That's when it hit me. For all my grumbling about the kitchen and dirty underwear and kids that I think don't appreciate their mother, I wouldn't change a thing. All those things that drive me crazy remind me that I have what I always wanted.

A good man.
Children.
My own home.

If the kitchen stayed clean and my social life was overflowing, I might be missing out on the very things that, for me, make my life complete. No kind of perfection is worth that.

I told you there was magic in that first cup.
Coffee makes the world go round.
But I'm still not picking up dirty underwear.