“How dignified chasing the refuse collectors, begging to have my bin emptied because I forgot to put it out the night before.”
The day begins as my alarm goes off. With every alert on my smart watch, I turn it off and drift back to sleep, until finally the threat of sleeping in for work is upon me.
As I lay in bed trying to keep my eyes open long enough, propping invisible match sticks to force them open, I hear an all too familiar sound.
The bins were being emptied and I had forgotten to put my bin out… in the peak of a summer heatwave!
As I heard the refuse collectors, emptying the bins and driving further down the street, I felt defeated.
With the temperatures soaring, the last thing you want is a bin full of rubbish for two weeks.
I looked out of my window, half expecting for them to be long gone, to see they weren’t actually as far away as I thought. They were in fact just reversing down the nearest side street.
With that a new wave of emotion enveloped me: determination.
I ran around the room like a headless chicken, trying to find a suitable outfit to throw on.
I ran out of the back door, dragged my bin to the front of the house and waited for the refuse truck to resurface from the side street.
Just to add to my mortification, my neighbour who lives opposite came out on his bike and said hello as he rode past. Who knows what he was thinking as I loitered at the end of my drive holding my bin handle.
As the truck pulled out of the side street I quickly began dragging the bin towards the guy walking beside it, waving at him like a mad woman.
I have to say he was very polite about it and promptly emptied my bin without complaint. I apologised profusely for forgetting to bring it out on time and thanked him for his kindness.
But how dignified chasing the refuse collectors, begging to have my bin emptied because I forgot to put it out the night before.
That is my life. Forgetful, embarrassing, apologetic.
Reflections
Today, though, as I walked my now empty bin back through the side gate, I began to laugh.
A year ago there is no way I would have actually taken my bin out and asked them to empty it. I would have sat stewing, pacing the house, kicking myself for not going out with it, or for not putting it out on time.
A year ago there’s no way I would leave the house having just chucked some clothes on, fresh out of bed with no hairspray on my hair!
Today I thought, what the hell, who cares what I look like and what’s the worst that can happen: he says no, he’s really rude about it or he’s nice about it.
Thankfully he was the latter of the three and it just goes to show you can’t judge a situation before it’s happened.
I have been working on facing uncertainty and today I embraced it.
The Ruminating Mum 