Bathtubs and Basement Leaks
Sometimes, you need a good cry.
I dip one toe into the tub.
The water is warm, the bath bomb has exploded in the most beautiful way that only bath bombs can — and so, I submerge my body into the tub.
I close my eyes for just a moment, letting the day melt off of me. Letting the stress find it’s way into the water and letting the pretty scent of the bath bomb find its way to my skin. I breathe, in and out. I rest.
It’s been five minutes of bliss, and then I hear it.
Drip, drip, drip.
I open my eyes and look around the bathroom — nothing is dripping, the floor and the ceiling are both bone dry.
I close my eyes again, willing my imagination to quiet down.
Drip, drip, drip.
It can’t be. It couldn’t be. We already had a plumber fix this tub. He took our money, too. Surely it couldn’t still be broken. Still, my imagination gets the best of me. And so, I call out to my husband, who’s working away in his office.
Honey, I say, can you check the basement? I think I hear something leaking.
I hear the stairs creak as he walks down into the basement.
I hear his footsteps move a lot quicker as he makes his way back upstairs.
You need to get out of the tub, he says. There’s water spilling everywhere downstairs.
I yell. I exclaim. I utter an expletive or two or four. How is this happening again? Why is this happening again? Are we being punked? Is Ashton Kutcher going to pop out of the closet with a camera crew? Were the fates mad at us or something? Why on earth couldn’t we get a break?
I wrap myself in a towel and go downstairs.
My husband is mopping up the mess of my bath. He tells me it’s ok, and that he’s got it, and I should go upstairs and change because it’s freezing in the basement. I oblige and run upstairs to put on dirty jeans and the first sweatshirt I can find.
My hair is sopping wet.
My feet are bare.
I go downstairs to survey the damage — he has mopped up all of the water. The rust from the pipes has made the floor reddish and brown. The spillage from wherever the leak is coming from has short-circuited the light closest to the tub’s pipes.
I sit on the steps and put my face in my hands, and I cry.
Tears flow as easily as I breathe. I cry because I’m tired, I cry because I’m frustrated, I cry because I’m sad, I cry because I am at a loss for how to explain my feelings further, and so, the feelings in my bones and the stirring in my heart spill out of my eyelids.
At one point, the tears stop.
I have nothing left to give — no water left to shed.
And, not surprisingly, my spirit feels a little bit lighter — for sometimes, you need a good cry to wipe away whatever wounds are clouding your vision.
We are healthy, and our family is healthy. We are blessed to have a home that we can call our own, not something that either one of us underappreciate.
Today is a day full of water.
Tomorrow it will dry.
