It’s that time in the evening when we stop thinking about the day in terms of “our day” and start to sink into the nighttime. On this night I can be found sitting by myself in the second of eight plastic blue chairs neatly arranged along to glass window wall that is the front of my laundromat. My laundromat. It’s my second time here, I know how the machines work without thinking about them or reading the instructions. The smell of the bathroom and the florescent lights are becoming memories in my mind. I remember the ceiling that takes me back to the dining hall at summer camp and the ATM that promises a ridiculous user fee. I’ve been here before and will come here again. It’s my laundromat. 

I have to be honest…this place is starting to grow on me. Sure, on any given night of the week there are roughly thirty places I would choose to go other than my laundromat. But on nights that are the cap to a day filled with stress, exhaustion, and worry it is comforting to know that the laundromat is still the laundromat. I like the variety of people and personalities I meet here. I like the smell of old laundry detergent and dirty water. I like the idea that this place “is what it is”, a bathroom for clothing.

Everyone at my laundromat looks like the only plans they had tonight were laundry. We are wearing old jeans or sweatpants, sweatshirts and slippers, and clearly we have not done our hair for the occasion. And that’s okay, because it doesn’t matter. We don’t need to know anything about each other. We don’t care about the clothes each other owns. It doesn’t matter what fills the machines. Some washers are filled with grime from working manual labor for eight hours and in others aprons from the shift at the local diner fill the drums. Some contain children’s bedding and happy blankets. Others are filled with the latest trends and fashions. But at the end of the day it doesn’t matter because everyone has dirty clothes that need to be washed, everyone.

I’m pretty prideful sometimes. I like to think I am not but the people I love remind me all the time, which I desperately need. If I am being honest I would say that I never would have thought I’d come to a laundromat to do laundry, as if it’s something to be better than. I would have told you that I would be on the other side of the wall getting my shirts and khakis pressed for the next day at the office. I would have told you anything but that I would be in a laundromat. It’s dumb isn’t it? It’s true though.

If I have been shown one thing this year it’s that God hates pride because it separates me from Him and everyone else on this planet that He loves. I mean who am I? Who am I to be better than anyone else? Really? I am nothing without God and even then it’s Christ in me that is something. We are nothing folks, we’re nothing.

So let’s all cut the garbage. Let’s fill the chips on our shoulders and just quit being arrogant, prideful, and “better-off” than everyone else. Let’s free ourselves from all that and quit holding ourselves to such a high esteem. It’s a choice that we all must make, we must.