Eggs and Salsa, or How to Handle Messes

What do eggs and salsa have to do with each other? Well, mostly that I dropped both of them in the last week. And mess only barely covers the result.

Anatomy of a Mess

Last week on Facebook, I mentioned how I overflowed my deep sink. Since that day, I’ve also dropped the eggs all over the fridge and floor (see above). And I shattered an entire jar of salsa on the cement basement floor.

So what happened? A shift.

With the deep sink, I forgot. I turned on the water and ran upstairs to do one other thing, by the end of which I had already forgotten about the sink, so I moved on to my desk and the garden before my daughter reminded me what I’d done.

The shift wasn’t in the sink. It was in me. I was trying to multi-task. But I shifted away from what I was doing so completely that I left something pretty significant unattended. And it made a mess.

In both of the other cases, the shift was physical. I remember the exact feeling of the shift.

I was walking across the basement with (perhaps) too many jars in my arms. And one moved. Just a hint of a shift, really, but it was enough.

And I could only watch the jar fall, knowing the end result. Salsa and glass in a mess on the floor amidst the completed puzzles my girls had left scattered around.

Or the eggs? I reached for the carton, not realizing all the eggs were in the back half. The container shifted, lid gaping from the weight of the eggs, and all of them slipped out.

The Shift

Do you know that feeling? The moment when something moves, shifts, slips?

Sometimes, it’s a shift of mind: In our busyness and distraction, we simply forget.

Or it’s a shift of fullness. We have so much going on, but no matter how good we are at keeping it all in the air, one thing slides away.

More often than not, the shift is handed to us. A poorly weighted egg carton. An unwelcome change to our schedule. An injury. Our kids running through the house, pushing us that much closer to the edge of our sanity.

But every mess starts with a shift. A moment when what we thought was under control … suddenly isn’t.

Every mess starts with a shift. A moment when what we thought was under control … suddenly isn't. Click To Tweet

And the results are not pretty.

We stare at our messes and feel like failures. We stand, open-mouthed, at just how far salsa can splatter. Or just how much damage an unkind work can do.

The shift results in a mess. Every time.

Cleaning up Eggs and Salsa and Bigger Messes

The salsa was a complete mess, a puddle of liquid, tomato, and peppers, complicated by broken glass. It took me a long time to move all the toys, sweep together all the glass, wash up the floor. And we did lose one puzzle to the tomato slop.

The eggs went everywhere. The whites slid under containers and down into the drawers before I could do a thing. The refrigerator door kept trying to close on me, and the egg on the floor was a challenge to pick up without breaking the yolk and making an even bigger mess.

Cleaning up the eggs meant warm water and a rag. Moving and rinsing and picking up eggshells. Propping open the door so the eggs didn’t slime up even more than they already had.

But the real messes, the ones in life, those are a lot harder. They require more than brooms and warm water. And the casualties are much more severe than a puzzle and my son’s breakfast.

But we can clean up our messes. And while we are tempted (oh, so very tempted) to brush it under the rug or hide from our mistakes, we can’t.

Because our messes often cause a shift in someone else’s life. If we refuse to handle our messes, we actually cause them in the lives of those around us. But by owning our mess and cleaning them up (as best we can), we can actually create peace and connection in the lives and the people around us.

How to Handle Messes

With eggs and salsa, we have to stop and do the work to clean it up. It’s not fun or easy. But it’s simple. Stop. Acknowledge the mess. And do what you can to eliminate it.

And in truth, it’s the same in every area of life. To handle our messes, we have to stop, acknowledge the mess, and do what we can to undercut its power.

What does that look like?

STOP: It means refusing to blow by the mess we’ve made or leave it for someone else to manage. It means putting down our screens so our hands are free to engage. It means releasing our to-do list and putting aside our own importance to stand in front of the mess we’ve made.

Acknowledge: I carried too many jars. I ruined Erin’s puzzle. I dropped the eggs and forgot the water running in the deep sink. It was me. It wasn’t my time crunch or my kids’ continuous interruptions. We have to own our messes and refuse to blame someone else for what was our fault.

Do What You Can: I wiped up the eggs and salsa. But my bigger messes aren’t as easy to clean up. Yours aren’t either, most likely. Harsh words can’t be recalled. The car crash or cancer diagnosis will leave us physically reeling for months, even years. People hurt us. We make mistakes. And there aren’t easy fixes.

Do what you can. Make the apology, whether or not it’s accepted. Send a card. Volunteer. Go to that person instead of making them come to you. Whatever you can do. Do it.

Do what you can. Make the apology, whether or not it's accepted. Send a card. Volunteer. Go to that person instead of making them come to you. Whatever you can do. Do it. Click To Tweet

It won’t fix everything. But it will make a difference. Another shift. And this time, that shift may be just enough to move you (or someone else) away from the next mess they’re about to make.