“My life has a superb cast, but I can’t figure out the plot.”
Ashleigh Brilliant
Every house has one. The drawer.
You know the one I mean. Somewhere near the kitchen. Maybe it’s in the hallway. The one filled with batteries that died in the Clinton administration, a tape measure that refuses to retract, and about twelve keys to things that no longer exist.
That’s life. That’s our lives.
We like to pretend everything has a system. A neat container. A label. But the truth is, most of us are walking junk drawers with Wi-Fi. We’ve got the stuff we actually need buried under the stuff we can’t bring ourselves to throw away.
And we’re fine with it—until company comes over.
That’s when we slam the drawer shut and pretend we’re the kind of people who alphabetize our spices. We light a candle that smells like “Forest Reverie” or “Nordic Linen” or whatever scent rich people apparently live inside. Then we smile, offer drinks, and hope no one opens anything with a handle.
That’s social media, isn’t it? The carefully curated illusion that we’ve got it together. Nobody’s posting their junk drawer. Just vacation sunsets, tidy kitchens, and the one photo where everyone’s eyes are open.
But life isn’t clean. It’s not filtered or symmetrical or particularly good at following instructions. It’s receipts, half-finished projects, and the leftover Allen wrench from the desk you built three apartments ago.
The other day I opened our junk drawer looking for scissors and ended up sitting on the floor reading an old birthday card from my kids. Ten minutes later, I still didn’t have the scissors—but I did have perspective.
And that’s the thing. The older I get, the more I think success isn’t the people who manage to keep everything organized—it’s the people who can open their drawer, look at the chaos, and laugh.
Because that’s the real plot, isn’t it?
The moments that don’t make the highlight reel. The quiet ones, the messy ones, the ones that don’t photograph well. The nights when your plans fall apart, but your friends show up anyway. The mornings when you sit with your coffee and realize that, despite everything, you kind of love this weird little life.
Maybe that’s what peace is: knowing where the batteries are, even if they don’t work.
