Lessons from a Strange Grey Film

• I had an interesting experience the other morning. I decided to clean our walk-in closet. Okay, that’s not the interesting part – but it is a different activity as I don’t get to it very often. In the closet are two chest of drawers and as I began to dust one of them, I noticed a thin film was covering the furniture. It was different from ordinary dust. It was a little greasy, light grey in color, and entirely unattractive. It also took some elbow grease to remove it. The next chest I saw had the same film on it. When I finished cleaning them and tidying up the closet, I felt pleased, but then my inner alarm went off. What was the film and where else was it? Upon inspection I noticed that all the shoes on the shoe rack appeared to have some of the film on them. They looked dull. Clothing hanging throughout the closet looked filmy as well, especially the items that aren’t worn very often.

  I had noticed some changes in the bedroom previous week as well. In the daytime, I had seen something that looked like a fine white powder on my bedroom floor and my nightstand, but I didn’t pay it any mind. At night I noticed the bedroom looked like a fog filled forest. It was actually kind of spooky. Despite my observations, I never thought to look and see where the stuff was coming from and if it was spreading and morphing elsewhere – morphing into some greasy, grey unattractive film all the way into my walk-in closet.

  Now studying the problem, I looked further and saw thick deposits all over my bedroom fan. Oh mercy and expletive! Here is the answer. It should have been obvious from the outset. We had put in a new humidifier in the bedroom to offset the mountain dry air. Unfortunately, we had been using our well water to fill it. And the humidifier worked great – maybe too great. Our well supplies our household needs such as for showering and laundry. However, because the water is incredibly mineralized, we don’t drink or cook with it. In fact, even using it for those needs can be costly as hot water heaters and dishwashers tend to expire more often than they should. So why did we decide it would be ok to use well water in the humidifier and why didn’t I notice the problems earlier. I guess I’m a bit stumped by that.

  We’ve changed over to using rainwater for the humidifier now – something we should have done from the beginning and we haven’t had any more issues. I’m also slowly getting the affected items cleaned up and put away and now I’m trying to access the larger lesson at play. Pay attention to small things that lead to larger consequences.

  I am reminded of how many other situations in my life tend to snowball when unattended – areas when there is a subtle “film” collecting here and there. It could be my finances not receiving proper attention or even worse, relationships. Often clues are given that there is something amiss. The tone of voice changes. The frequency of the contact diminishes, and ever so slowly the level of closeness begins to fade. When this happens, I must first recognize the issue and then decide whether to step up my efforts to restore the friendship or let it go. And, like Neil Peart said in Freewill, “If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.” I would prefer to choose 😊

  Lessons from a grey film? I try to look for them everywhere. How about you? Any areas of grey film in your life?