I made some confessions this past week.  One, I didn’t even mean to make…

A few days ago, at the peak of a January deep freeze, something happened here for the first time ever. 

Early that morning, my son and I heard a distinctly explosion-like noise.  From upstairs, I thought it had come from outside.  From the kitchen, where he was pouring his to-go cup of coffee, he yelled up to me, “What was that?”  We exchanged opinions as to where it had come from. He suspected the basement. Investigating that, we saw nothing amiss.  Looking around more, we noticed a piece of vinyl siding that had popped out on the side of the house, which has happened before in wintertime.  It didn’t seem like something that would make that kind of noise, but nothing else looked wrong anywhere.

Shortly thereafter, we both left.  Him, for the day.  Me, to run some errands.  I returned almost exactly two-hours later.  Opening the door, I immediately heard what sounded (alarmingly!) like a waterfall.  After processing its origin for a split-second, I yanked open the first-floor bathroom door to find an eruption of water resembling an open fire hydrant blasting from behind the shower valve.  Scrambling to the basement, I cut off the main valve, then ran back to assess the damage.  My adrenaline began to ease as I realized that the closed glass shower doors had managed to keep the gusher mostly contained.

That little bathroom, situated along an exterior wall, only has gravity heat.  Normally plenty - since I can extend both arms and almost touch the walls in every direction.  Still, though, on extremely cold nights, we usually leave the door open to allow extra heat in – to prevent any pipes from freezing.  The previous evening, however, I guess we forgot about that.  Apparently, we’d been right to remember it on all the other frigid nights for 27-years, because clearly – it only took one for disaster to strike.  In all fairness, I should say “potential” disaster because, although we now need to replace a two-year-old shower valve and will likely notice up to two-hours-worth of gushing water on the next bill:

It really could have been so much worse.

Look back now, I recognize that statement as the one that kicked off a veritable week of confessions…  Starting with that one I didn’t mean to make…

That night I left my husband and son to their conversation and whatever YouTube boat motor video they had playing, retreating to my quiet bedroom.  I slipped between the cold sheets, beneath my favorite blanket, book in-hand, ready to wind down my favorite way.  That lasted… maybe five minutes – before they followed me.  The next thing I knew, one sat on the edge of the bed, the other stood in the doorway, and both still talked.  So much for peaceful reading.  In such moments, I remind myself to savor the nights that I still have my son at home.  I have the rest of my life to read… Conversation with them won.  Eventually someone (I hope it wasn’t me…) said the thing about how that day’s water explosion situation could have been so much worse. 

That’s when my son looked me square in my washed, moisturized, bespectacled, ready-to-just-read-then-sleep face, and said, “Yeah!  Did you ever tell him about the laundry room!?”

“No, Ian.  As a matter of fact, I never have told him about the laundry room.  Until now, apparently.  So glad you mentioned that…”

Thus began my unplanned confession - enhanced by his narration.    

…I remember exactly when it happened (May 2018) because I remember exactly why it happened.  I’d finished addressing my daughter’s bridal shower invitations, then decided at the last minute that they felt incomplete without a beautiful engagement photo – taken after we’d already had the invitations printed.   

Life happened at a frenetic pace that year.  Thanks to a chain of events the telling of which probably merits its own story someday, we planned and executed a wedding in 5-and-a-half-months.  Four of those included travel every other weekend, along with the rest of the full-time process we kept up for the entirety of our son’s teenage years in support of his motorcycle racing career.    

That morning, preparing to load up and leave for another weekend, I’d started early.  I’d get race gear cleaned before I ran out to pick up those engagement photos.  I could get it all done and still get the invitations out in that day’s mail.  Having saved a mud-caked neck brace for last, I tossed it into the laundry room sink, inserted the drain plug, and turned on the hot water.  A deep sink, it would take a while to fill.  I had time to run upstairs, wake my son for school, and remind him that I had to run and get those photos.  Then, apparently, I left. 

Thirty-minutes later, my phone rang.  “Hey….” he said, “did you leave water running….?”

Picture me here:  First thing in the morning.  Straight out of bed.  Wearing whatever I’d deemed suitable race gear scrubbing attire.  Currently blowing through the doors of a retail establishment, surely nearing Olympic-walker speed, just trying to get it all done.  Then (phone to ear) screeching to a halt and exclaiming - who knows what - as with sudden and terrifying clarity, I remembered that, yes, I had left water running… and the drain plug in! 

My son’s clue came when, following his (never exactly expeditious) teenage wake-up process, he made his way to the shower.  He does recall now that, on that particular day, he had moved at least a little faster than usual, motivated by the force with which I’d evidently “encouraged” him to do so.  I guess he knew I meant it when I said he’d better get into school on time, without counting on me to act as his human snooze alarm.   

I can’t know exactly how long it took him to move from bed to shower, but obviously longer than the hot water tank can perform, because that was his clue.  He waited and waited for the water to warm up.  When it wouldn’t, he turned off the shower and realized he could hear water - somewhere…

“I wrapped myself in a towel and went downstairs,” he remembers, “and found water running out onto the office floor!”  (We walk through the office to get to the laundry room…)

Looking back, I’ll always remember what ensued next as one of those little bonding experiences I’ve shared with my son. 

Somehow, I stayed on task and picked up engagement photos.  Simultaneously beseeching him to get towels and just start sopping it up!  The towel he was wearing!  Any towels!  ALL THE TOWELS!  I don’t remember driving home, but I do remember arriving at home and seeing bath towels, beach towels, camper towels, and even garage towels hanging from the patio railing.  The place looked like a bad beach motel. 

Bless his heart, he helped me.  We emptied the laundry room and its (also flooded) walk-in closet.  I remember feeling a special kind of horror upon seeing the soaked Dyson vacuum cleaner box.  My mother-in-law had already sent that (trusting me to keep, wrap, and deliver it) as a bridal shower gift. 

We emptied, sopped, and mopped.  Taking advantage of the sunny, blue-sky day, we hung things outside to dry; opened windows and doors; set up fans. 

And we did it. 

By the time my husband got home that evening, one would never have suspected anything unusual had happened.  

I even mailed the shower invitations on time.   

…Turns out, almost four-years later, the blabbing of this story still put a rather dropped-jaw expression on my husband’s face. 

All’s well that ends well, though, I guess.  Because the next thing I knew, we’d moved on:  For a walk down memory lane featuring similar past transgressions (all involving lawn care equipment) I also delayed confessing. …That time they noticed the whole-house generator knocked a little crooked; or the central air unit just a smidge… scooted; or the downspout dented; or the water well cap slightly askew – and sporting a stripe of… John Deere Green??  Finally, and certainly most famously, that one weekday afternoon when our neighbor reported having responded to my plea for help getting a full-size gasoline-powered (apparently very powerful) weed eater down from a tree… (We won’t even talk about the bush hog or the volleyball net…)

If it sounds a little unhealthy that I ever tried to “hide” these things - or the laundry room incident – I get that.  

But it honestly never felt that way.  In general, my husband and I make a very intentional point of not keeping things from one another.  Quite truthfully, if you want to keep a total secret, you probably shouldn’t tell either one of us.  So often, we say to each other, “I’m not supposed to tell anyone this, but I tell you everything…”

My natural response to my self-inflicted disasters has come way less from a place of hiding things, and way more from one of just handling them - without casting extra burden onto someone already carrying plenty.  He deals with enough stress most days.  Shouldn’t home just feel… easier?  If I can handle things myself and move on, why wouldn’t I?    

I never “hid” these things for any other reason, yet (eventually) getting them out in the open has still always felt, somehow… better.  Real Life examples of “this too shall pass.”  What feels disastrous in the moment can become something we laugh about someday.  Time has a way of softening edges, especially of things that resulted in no real harm.  (Maybe check back on that when we tear up that laundry room tile someday…)

Telling the truth about a thing takes away its power over us. 

I’ve thought a lot about that this week, as I’ve found myself making other confessions.  Ones I meant to…

Sometimes I feel ways I don’t want to feel.  I’m learning to pay attention to that, and to honestly examine why.  It’s not that much fun to acknowledge that I’m selfish.  Or judgmental.  Or jealous.  Or prideful.  Or easily offended.  Or slow to say I’m sorry.  (…Feel free to stop me any time here…) I was all those things this week, though, and I don’t want to be any of them. 

I can’t change what I won’t admit.

First to myself, but the true power to change comes when I confess such things to God.  Not that He needs me to tell Him anything He doesn’t already know.  My talent for hiding things like small floods and wrecked lawnmowers here on earth does not impress Him, because I can hide nothing from Him.  He knows my every thought.  But, in order to work in me, He does need my honesty about the condition of my heart:  To hear me tell Him I’m sorry and invite Him into those dark places - to help me do better. 

Unlike I tend to do here in the flesh, I need never try to spare Him anything.  He wants me to bring Him my every burden; trusting that He can always handle it, regardless of how heavy it feels to me.      

The most powerfully amazing part?  He will never walk me down memory lane when it comes to my past offenses.  He forgives - blots them out completely - the minute I confess from my heart and ask. 

That’s a truth I’d never try to hide, because He can, wants to, do that for us all.  Anytime.  Anywhere.  

…On that “storytelling” night, we eventually reached “The End.” 

I made sure to “thank” my son for having chosen just then to bring all that up.  Completely aware of, yet characteristically unfazed by my real meaning, he said, “It was time.  Did you really want to take that to the grave?” I must admit, the kid made a fair point…

Coming clean really does, somehow, always leave me feeling… better.  Especially when I mean to. 

(PS:  The vacuum cleaner was fine.  Only the shipping box got wet.  Nobody but me, my boy, and God would have ever known…)