A Hot Mess

Southern Pine Straw & Cones

In the south I grew up in hearing someone say, “That’s a hot mess”, is nothing strange. In fact it’s a pretty common thing to hear, especially when you got crazy happening all around you. I’ve noticed while writing these posts I can focus and condense my thoughts; condensing them to the point that I can make myself sound pretty damn smart. But in reality a good chunk of the time my life I’m just another hot mess. 

I remember as a kid, my dad and I would burn the straw we raked (mind you, this was the 1970’s). After setting the straw pile on fire, it was me and my little brother and sister’s job to stump out the little grass fires that would spout up around the pile. So we’d stand there and wait for a little tuff of grass to catch fire. But just as soon they stomped one fire another one would pop up.

Life has a funny way of doing the same thing by having us stomp out little fires. And just when you’d think you got it all under control, up pops another little fire. But when I think about it whenever one of those little fires popped up we never stressed out about it. In fact it seemed like we looked forward to them, laughing giggling every time we’d jump up and stomp it out.

The point I hope to make is this, in each of our lives we feel like a hot mess. Something is always going on; rather it’s the job, the kids, or the neighbors’ noisy dog. 

Stomp. Stomp. Stomp. 

The reality is life never said it was going to be fair or fun. But that doesn’t mean we have to let life drain the life out of us. Just like those days gone by, when three kids made an adventure out of putting out the flames. Let’s allow ourselves the same attitude (more or less), so that when another fire pops up, instead of grumbling and complaining about it. We look at it was as another part of living and stomp out the fire.