For the last several nights I have fallen gratefully into my bed and slept like the pious old woman I am (in my imagination). I have slept on the bare mattress and the bare pillows because the clean sheets are laying atop the dryer, on the other side of my enormous mansion. It would take safari preparations to make it all the way to the utility room - just steps from the refrigerator where I can be found throughout the day and oft times in the night. My mother would NEVER have slept on a bare mattress.
Truth be told, I think the mattress is beautiful. It is red and very fancifully embroidered in pink, lavender and silver. I do not mind waking up to the art nouveau busyness of it. Most of the time I make the bed the same day I wash the sheets but sometimes I do not. Sleeping on a bare mattress is not a habit but it happens and I always feel guilty. Just a tiny twinge of guilt regarding the lesser sin of sloth. It is a gram of guilt on the scales of my life. (Disclaimer: I will not discuss the metric tons of guilt of my life here so do not be disappointed.)
Everyday there are small things that get added to the dark side of that scale, like cussing around people who do not cuss. Using politically incorrect words as terms of endearment to my children... and the dogs, and the horses. The darkest, most vile PIC words are reserved for the machinery that fails when I am trying to get work accomplished.* Well, that's a lie. I do not believe I have EVER regretted cussing - even when I got my mouth washed out with soap. Cussing is the rhythm guitar of language. It is not essential but it is necessary.
I allowed my young son to keep a one hundred dollar bill he found on the street but I never made the effort to return the money. That one bothers me enough that I need to make amends for it but have not decided how to go about it. Maybe drop a hundred dollar bill on the same street? I should have taught my son by example but he was so excited that he found it. (Who wouldn't be?!) It was next to an older man's foot and my little son said, "Excuse me, sir, but is that your money?" My daughter was there. She said the guy would have lied and claimed it if my son had been alone. After a brief visible internal conflict, the guy admitted it was not his money. I could have turned it in to the police or advertised in the local paper but I simply let my son have the money.
I did not take my faithful and beloved old dog in to be euthanized before the end. He was eating and drinking and getting around, but visibly declining in health and suffering. I cooked special food for him for the last four months of his life. I had it in my head that if he stopped being able to get around, then I would take him to the vet. He was clearly determined to stay on his feet. Maybe he knew that was the metric I was using to make my final decision. The last day he was not doing well at all when I fed him supper. Later in the evening I called for him to go into the garage because it was going to rain. He came one last time, but then he could not walk any longer. I tried to lift him so I could get him to shelter but I saw that he was dying. I stayed with him where he had fallen, my heart broken, guilt and regret crushing me. I will always be sorry and I will always be guilty for that... and for an entire lifetime of decisions and actions and other stuff but I know I am not the worse human being on the planet. I am not even in the bottom 50% in this lifetime. Guilt is a good teacher and a mighty brake on the human ego and willful spirit but oh, it is burdensome.
On second thought, sleeping without sheets sometimes should not even be on the scale of guilt and regret - not even a gram's worth! Fuck sleeping without sheets.
*How could I fail to mention the monstrous cussing technology elicits?! I will probably go to hell for that.
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