The Things We’re Building

It is a Tuesday night and the bedroom doors are finally closed. 

I press my hand to the small of my back and open my eyes to survey the damage. 

“It looks like a bomb went off in here.” I speak the words aloud, to no one. 

The pieces of our day are strewn about like debris from a storm. Books are all over the rug. Toy tractors, magnetic tiles, and colored pencils have been dumped into one massive pile under the dining room table. My desk is covered in papers. A glance into the kitchen reminds me that I have dinner plates to load into the dishwasher and lunch bags to unpack. I lift a green hoodie from the floor to shake off clumps of dog hair and my nose wrinkles in silent judgment of the woman who allows her house to get this messy. 

In defense of that woman, she’s just trying to stay afloat.

Since we started corn harvest in September, I’ve put the kids to bed by myself nearly every night. My mind feels as messy as our floors. Standards have slipped, resilience is low, and things around here have slowly devolved into Lord of the Flies territory. We all wept for the end of innocence last week when the baby pooped in the tub.

Kyle isn’t faring much better. While he’s dealt with late nights, broken equipment, and weary employees, I’ve dealt with isolation, endless food prep, and juggling kids and remote work. To say nothing of seven months of a worldwide pandemic and constant anxiety about the future. We’re both running on fumes. 

“Kitchen first,” I murmur, needing to break the chaos into manageable bits. I kneel down to wipe milk off the floor as the jackhammer sound of brakes fills the air. I lift my head to see yet another silage truck turn and rumble down the dirt road to the north of our house. The truck’s load of chopped corn will be dumped at the base of the massive pile Kyle’s been building since dawn. I think—not for the first time—that I would lose my mind if I had to drive a tractor up and down a pile of corn for 14 hours straight. How repetitive. 

“Then again,” I cringe internally as I retrieve Henning’s fork and cup from the floor, “This is exactly what I did last night.”

Twenty minutes and a few more thoughts about futility later, the dishes are cleared, the countertops are wiped, and lunches are prepped for the next day. Onward. I pull my hair up into a messy knot and begin the nightly reset. I move from room to room methodically, gathering the wreckage of our day in my arms to set things right. Books go on the shelves, crayons back in their bins, pillows are fluffed and returned to the couch. After I wriggle under a chair to retrieve a small green tractor, I step back into the dining room. 

Even though the toys are put away, it’s a mess. At least to me. What used to be a relatively clean space pre-pandemic for dinner parties and weekend date nights is now a hybrid office/playroom. My narrow desk is shoved into a corner and the room is divided from the rest of the house by a barricade made up of a large plastic tub, an IKEA toy kitchen, and a wooden book bin. Anything to contain the kids. I’ve spent hours in this room since March, trying to write press releases while Daniel Tiger blared in the background, holding a baby on my lap during video meetings, and vacuuming kinetic sand off the floor. 

This room, this house has never been so lived in. Each day is a never-ending cycle of taking things out and putting them away. Meals and naps and so much screen time. In the past seven months, this place has been both a prison and a sanctuary. 

How can it all feel so claustrophobic when all I ever wanted was a full house? 

How can I be so battered by a life I prayed desperately to have? 

***

I once asked Kyle how he could do the same thing—drive a tractor back and forth, in this case—for hours, days, and weeks on end. “Don’t you just go crazy?” I said. He shrugged and said, “I’m building something. Every day I’m making progress and it feels good.” 

In his case, he’s building a pile of shredded corn stalks the length of a soccer field. Every hour he spends driving back and forth means our cows will have food for the next year. But it’s bigger than corn, I think. This philosophy guides his life—everything he does is in service to this business and a desire to keep moving forward.

Sometimes I wish my goals were that clear. I’m not always sure what I’m building while juggling work calls and the never-ending cycle of cooking breakfast, wiping noses, saying prayers, and picking up toys. My days are a winding road of repetitive tasks and trying to keep it together until bedtime, all while being floored by adoration for my aggravating little people. There isn’t a big payoff.

***

I drop the toy tractor into the basket and the noise startles me out of my reprieve. The post-bedtime silence feels almost eerie. Calm is what I desperately wanted all day—space to think a complete thought, answer a few emails, or take a step without a child or dog underfoot—but now that I’m here, the air is charged. It’s as if the lack of noise is just that: a lack. 

“I miss them,” I realize. This thought is immediately followed by, “You’re a crazy person,” but in spite of the dull ache in my head, I smile. 

My eyes rove the house again. Their energy still pulses through the air. Little handprints appear like evidence on every mirror, window, and low cupboard. A vase of purple and yellow wildflowers Anders picked for me sits on the counter. These scattered fragments tell the story of our life. A story of kids who build forts and have pillow fights and draw pictures for the fridge. A story of a mom who yells and fails and yet keeps on trying. 

I gather one last handful of broken crayons from the floor and straighten. 

I’m building something, and it feels good.