the state of life

The other night, Joel summed up (unintentionally) how I have been feeling about a lot of things in life. Here's how the conversation went:

He looked at our movie/video game shelves and said, "You should sort those and then alphabetize them so you could find them easier." (Now, I know a lot of people do this...but ask anyone who knows me and Donald well if they would consider the two of us the type to do it and the laughter would carry to the moon.)

I replied, "Go for it." He looked at me puzzled and I said, "I will probably never sort them and get them in ABC order. As close as I get it making sure all the Gilmore Girls seasons are on one shelf. But I would never stop anyone who WANTED to organize them from doing it."

He happily pulled all the cases from the shelf and began to sort them into piles of XBOX, Wii, PS2, and DVD. (Funny side note, the 3 VHS tapes are still on the floor. He could not figure out where to sort them to.) Each pile was then sorted into 2 piles (first half and second half of alphabet). Box sets were put together, and then the sorted and alphabetized groups of cases were shelved.

As he finished, I said (jokingly...but certainly would not have stopped him if he'd gone for it), "You can do the bookcase next, if you want."

He looked at the bookcase for a few seconds and then said, "I like to organize things...but I dislike things that cannot be straightened out...that's why I dislike that bookshelf." (Needless to say, he left without straightening out the bookcase.)

I laughed a lot at that statement of Joel disliking my bookcase...but it has become clear to me that it is a great way to express how I feel about some things.

I can't fix them, I can't straighten them out...and I dislike that.

I am not going to express the thing making me feel this way the most, not here on the internet, anyway. If you know me and I trust you, I would tell you if you asked...but I would be afraid of the repercussions of putting it here.

The other things are family illnesses, personal disappointment in myself and a general bitterness that I still struggle against with this stupid infertility.

I want a life more easily sorted, alphabetized and straightened.