Bags of Clothes in the Car: How We Got It All Done

My son asked me once how I got everything done.

He was in his early 30s at the time, already tired, already wondering how anyone manages it all. And I thought about it for a second and told him the truth: I had bags of clothes in the car. I switched them out as needed so we could get in and out and keep moving. I just started where I left off the day before. And I only needed about six hours of sleep.

That was the system. That was all of it.

We got married in the early 80s — at Caesars in Vegas, because of course we did — and from there we just ran. My husband built his IT career decade by decade, watching technology change from the inside out. I went back to school in my early 30s to finish my BA, because an AA wasn't enough and I wasn't done yet. I was also in martial arts by then. Two nights of school, two nights of martial arts, one child under five, one under ten. The younger one came to martial arts with me during the week. The older one went to dance on Saturdays. Grocery shopping was still a solo weekly production back then — no delivery, no shortcuts. Homework happened on Sundays.

By the time I was 40, I had my BA and my black belt. I finished my teaching credential in my early 40s and spent the next 20 years teaching math.

He was doing his share right alongside me the whole time. That's the part that matters.

We threw his 65th birthday party recently — a proper one, in a club building with animal trophy heads on the walls and tablecloths on every table and a room full of people who've known us for decades. We did it by decade: what was happening in the 60s, the 70s, the 80s, the 90s, in technology, in the world, in our lives. Photos from Caesars. Photos from the early years with small children. Weddings. Grandchildren. An assortment of people who showed up at various points along the way and stayed.

I was very, very tired afterward. It was absolutely worth it.

Here's what I know about a life lived at full speed: you don't always see it while you're in it. You're too busy switching out the bags of clothes in the car. But when you stop — really stop, in a room full of people who were there — you get to see the whole shape of it at once.

It's a good shape.

And yes — all of these people, all of these decades, all of these moments end up in the books eventually. How could they not? The best characters are always the real ones.