On Moldy Fish, Adulting, and Being An Imperfect Mess

“Excuse the mess, but we live here.” ~Roseanne Barr

Can we talk about the moldy piece of fish in my fridge?

(Stay with me here. This is going somewhere. I promise.)

Earlier this week I pulled a pyrex container out of the back of my refrigerator and discovered that it contained the most disgusting piece of old salmon ever. Complete with a thick layer of fuzzy white mold and a fragrance I can’t quite describe unless you were there to inhale its awfulness.

This lovely specimen was cooked more than two weeks prior to its unfortunate discovery and tossed in the fridge by yours truly, with every intention of eating it the following day as leftovers. This obviously never happened.

Oops.

Instead, I allowed the salmon to sit in our fridge for at least two full weeks and rot.

You guys! I’m disgusting!

But here’s the thing (and the reason I bring this story up at all):

We are ALL disgusting sometimes.

 

Yep. I said it.

Maybe there are like one or two of you out there who always have their shit together and never leave food in the back of the refrigerator for multiple weeks to rot, but I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that you, my dear(s), are the exception to the rule.

And, frankly, I think we need to be more open and honest about our moldy fish situations. Because it’s easy to start thinking you’re the only one with skeletons in your closet or fish carcasses growing old in your kitchen.

The truth:  You are not alone.

 

A few weeks ago, I put together a lovely little present for a family member — and then promptly left it in the back seat of my car for the next fourteen days or so, instead of taking it to the post office and ACTUALLY PUTTING IT IN THE MAIL.

Confession:  It’s still in my car right now.

I also recently found a shirt in our laundry room that had been sitting in a basket on top of the dryer for, oh, just about nine months because it requires hand washing and I just had zero desire to deal with that noise and annoyance.

Even though the shirt is one of my favorite shirts ever.

(And we’re quickly approaching a year of not wearing that shirt because I’ve been too fucking lazy to clean it. #whatiswrongwithme)

Adulting is hard, you guys. And sometimes you just can’t do it all.

 

You have to prioritize the important stuff and forgive yourself for failing to accomplish many of the items that are further down on your list.

Like going to the post office. And washing your pretentious t-shirts in the sink. And cleaning out the refrigerator at reasonable intervals.

Let’s stop pretending we have it all together and start being honest with each other about how messy and disgusting we are. About how some days just brushing your teeth feels like too much work.

Let’s talk about how sometimes — lots of times — we feel overwhelmed and anxious and incapable. About how some days we cry more than we accomplish anything productive, about how just trying to be a functioning human in this crazy ass world can take all the energy we have.

Ninety-nine percent of us have either literal or metaphorical rotting fish carcasses in our refrigerators most of the time.

 

I say we start talking about them more openly. So we can all stop feeling like we’re weirdos who are falling behind and start seeing that we’re all in this shit show together.