I made spaghetti for dinner a few nights ago.
Spaghetti makes a lot of dishes to wash - the pans, the colander, the serving spoons, the plates, etc.
The sink was full of dirty dishes by the time we finished eating.
I have a dishwasher, so it's not really hard work to clean up after a meal like that. Everything except the big pans just gets put into the washer and I press a button.
It's almost too easy.
Not like it used to be when I was a kid.
When we were young, my brother and I used to have to take turns washing dishes. One would wash, the other dry and then the next night we'd switch.
And I remember feeling like having to do the dishes was torture. Fighting and arguing many nights.
Even one time telling my stepfather I hated him because it was so unfair.
Because I had to wash dishes...seriously?
Ironically, hand washing dishes now is almost therapeutic for me. I don't mind at all when I have to put my hands in that hot, soapy water and wash the pans after a big meal.
Just another example of how our perspective changes as we get older.
When you are 8, 9, 10 years old, dishes seem like a lot of work.
Not so much when you are 45 and you've been through enough life that you know what hard work actually means.
If you think about it though, it's all relative.
To an ant, a tiny hill looks like a mountain. To an elephant, it's not even a bump in the road.
Our kids are just ants. Even the teenage ones.
Their perspective is based on the life experience they have been able to accumulate so far, in just a few short years.
I sometimes wish, especially this past year, that I could get inside my boys' heads and understand what they are thinking about all of this.
Does the pile of dirty dishes in front of them look impossible to clean?
I bet sometimes it does.
It's a tough time to be a parent right now.
It's a tough time to be a kid right now.
Heck...it's a tough time to be a human being right now.
And we're all seeing life through different lenses and life experiences.
After the dishes were cleaned up the other night, the counter wiped down, and the towel hung back on the stove handle, I took a minute to look around and be grateful.
I was grateful for the dirty dishes in my sink.
Because they meant that I had been through enough in life to see that a pile of dirty dishes isn't even a bump in the road anymore.
I just hope that in a few years, my boys will have gained enough perspective to see their dirty dishes the same way.
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