Everything Is Maintenance

Nothing Stays Done

I crossed something off my to-do list the other day and immediately learned something important:

Nothing on a to-do list is ever actually done.

The thing I crossed off was: email sunscreen company.

My tinted sunscreen from Tower 28 has an unexpected side effect: the ink printed on the tube comes off when it gets wet.

This would be easier to avoid if sunscreen were meant to be applied dry.

It isn’t.

It’s tinted, which means you want an even, flawless application. So I apply it with a beauty blender. The beauty blender is supposed to be damp. Everything in this process wants to be damp.

My hands.

The sponge.

The instructions.

So when the ink transfers from the tube onto my fingers and then onto my face, it isn’t user error.

It’s simply the system functioning exactly as designed.

I noticed this because I had ink on my cheek.

Ink that used to be printed on the tube.

I wrote to the company. They replied politely and said they had never heard of this happening before.

This is always an exciting sentence because it means I am now the first person in history to experience a problem that definitely did not start with me.

They sent me a return label and asked for proof of purchase, which I had—even though we were communicating from the same email address I used to order it directly from them.

Fine.

Handled.

Crossed off.

Later, I mentioned this to my husband the way you mention a small annoying thing that is now over.

That’s when he said:

“Oh yeah, the sunscreen I use—Biossance—separated.”

Not the same sunscreen.

A different one.

Untinted.

Recently purchased.

Still somehow my problem now.

Part of what makes this especially annoying is that we don’t buy these things one at a time.

When I replenished, I stocked up for both of us, the way you do when you think you’re being responsible.

A few tubes.

A few bottles.

Six of the tinted sunscreen, because it’s supposed to be good for sensitive skin and because I didn’t want to think about sunscreen again for a while.

A couple bottles of my husband’s sunscreen.

All of this within the last few months.

This was not hoarding.

This was planning.

I think part of this is just how things are divided up in our house.

My husband builds things. He fixes things. He’ll casually install a floor or build a catio, and then it’s done.

Voilà.

A visible achievement you can point to and say:

He did that.

My work is different.

My work repeats.

I do the laundry, which is never finished.

I order the sunscreen, which eventually becomes an email.

I handle the small, recurring problems with companies because I’m the one who ordered the thing in the first place.

This is fine.

I am very capable.

I just live inside the loop.

His tasks end.

Mine regenerate.

So when I cross something off my to-do list, I’m not completing it.

I’m resetting it for the future.

Like laundry.

Or sunscreen.

Or noticing ink on my face.

Nothing is wrong.

This is just how it works.

I crossed one thing off my list.

The list did not notice.