A Glorious Mess

Six dinner parties in six nights. It was my husband’s idea. His parents were visiting from interstate for a week. Since it was his birthday while they were here, he decided we should celebrate everyone’s birthdays to make up for the times we couldn’t be together. It would work perfectly because there were six of us, and they would be here for six nights. My inspiration was to add a couple of guests every night – our friends for our unbirthdays and people we thought my in-laws would like for their celebrations.

Our household’s tradition is to create themes representing each person at significant events. Hubby and I are both creative people, and we love coming up with themes and styles. We use coloured tablecloths, table decorations, presents wrapped in matching paper and window banners to customise the area where the person is being celebrated. We threw ourselves into designing each person’s non-birthday dinner and inviting the agreed-on guests.

Each dinner went well. The meal was food that the ‘birthday’ person enjoyed, down to dessert. My in-laws handed over their presents early so that they could see their grandsons opening their chosen gifts. The guests went along with the game and enhanced each celebration beautifully.

The only thing my husband and I didn’t consider was that we are not twenty-five any more. We’re not even thirty-five – and those who know us well know forty-five is well behind us too. Hubby was on holiday, but I was still going to work each day. The dinners started on Monday night; by Thursday, I was dying on the inside. My parents-in-law were sleeping at a hotel, so it wasn’t that the house was untidy or even fuller than usual, but after they left, the house had to be ‘reset’ so that it was ready for the next dinner. We don’t have a dishwasher, and our youthful sons, worn out from having to be sociable, had deserted us for the comfort of their computer caves and online communities, so I had to handwash dishes from eight guests worth of two-course meals, clean the table, tidy the kitchen and any multi-use areas, and then get to bed.

Being an extrovert, though, people energise me. Although our guests were gone each night by 9:30 pm – or 10 pm in one case – having been around people wakes me right up, and it was close to midnight each night before I could settle enough to go to bed. I still had to get up at 6 am to be at work on time, so it’s fair to say that by the end of the week, I was drooping.

Our Friday night guests encountered me in a more worn-out state than usual. I snapped at my husband at least once, and my oldest son got a strongly delivered ‘Do you mind?’ when he whacked me in the head with a balloon left over from his father’s birthday decorations. To avert further disaster, I turned the impromptu game of human whack-a-mole into balloon tennis and even gave myself a five-minute time out in front of my computer to reset my mood.

The only thing that got me through the week with nothing worse than a slightly snappy tone on Friday evening was the promise I had made myself that I would rest on Sunday afternoon. There was no chance to do so earlier than that because I had a creative writing group to attend on Saturday morning, followed by a family outing to find the Thomas Dambo Giant in Subiaco in the afternoon and our final non-birthday dinner that evening – and I was rostered on the Worship team for the Sunday morning service. That meant my weekend would be busy until my in-laws headed for the airport on Sunday at lunchtime.

I kept my promise. On my way home from church, knowing my husband and youngest son were at the airport delivering our visitors to their plane, I diverted to the shops with my oldest son to buy my favourite takeaway (Chinese BBQ, if you must know) for our lunch. Then I had a long shower, changed into my pyjamas and did precisely what I’d told anyone who came within talking distance of me during the week that I would do: I sat on the recliner couch in front of the television, staring at Netflix but not taking any of it in. I let my body rest and my mind drift wherever it wanted. I ignored the breakfast dishes and the leftover mess from the final dinner and stopped.

Jesus tells us to rest. God Himself stopped after six days of creating the world. Doctors advise us to take time out for ourselves, as do counsellors. The question is: do we know how to do that? Are we able to permit ourselves to stop when we need to? Thanks to having two rounds of major surgery in less than a year that left me easily exhausted, I was forced to learn where my limits are. Those operations were seven years ago now. Back then – in fact, even two years ago – I would not have been able to get through six dinner parties in a row and a busy weekend. But even now, I know there is a price to pay for being busy and that if I don’t stop and let my body recover physically and mentally, I will not be able to keep going for long. So, I book in time to stop. I decide which afternoon will be a ‘waste day’ where I choose not to do anything other than laze around. I remove from myself any obligation to be productive or even friendly. I assume my favourite ‘couch potato’ position (slightly reclined with my feet up), and I become a blob.

The promise of that ‘nothing’ time keeps me going during busy seasons. It is intentionally doing nothing that lets me recover so I can continue my often-crazy life. I have learned not to let myself run until I drop because that is so much harder to recover from. Instead, a purposely placed veg-out does wonders for both body and mind. Try it. You might be surprised at how helpful it is.