i just washed our breakfast dishes by hand.

My Sweetie and i live in a 2nd-floor walk-up while i’m in school: no dishwasher, no central A/C (we smuggled in window units), all sorts of century-old visual charm.

almost every time i wash the dishes — which is my general responsibility, since My Sweetie continues to be our chef, so once or twice a day — i think: damn, this only takes about ten minutes.

…why did i get so stuck before?

.

see, when i first moved to austin, i lived in a second-floor walk-up with no dishwasher and one window A/C (which was actually installed in the dining area wall).

i rarely washed my dishes. it was so much work. instead, i let them soak, which ended up rusting the pans, because i left them so long. i didn’t know pans could rust! my mom was still using pans from when she was 22 and set up housekeeping with my dad!

so. much. work.

i “solved” this by getting a slightly better income, an apartment with a dishwasher, and then a spouse with a Real Job and the income to match. out of which came the house with a dishwasher, etc.

and yet

lo and behold, 35 years later, i’m finding that washing dishes is not, actually, like that.

.

it’s odd to look back and see how deeply depressed and overwhelmed i was,

that 10 minutes of, admittedly, monotony,

was Just. Too. Much.