Scribed In Light

---

From the outside, everything looks fine.

Quiet street. Normal house. Respectable life.
The kind of place you’d assume smells like coffee, laundry detergent, and responsible adult decisions.

From the inside?

It smells like lime, sulfur, and consequences.

Ringworm dip does not arrive politely.
It enters.

It doesn’t knock. It doesn’t care about your mood. It does not respect candles, sprays, diffusers, or the audacity of your Pinterest board. You open the door and—BAM—your entire personality is replaced with someone who is no longer hosting guests.

Anyone walking in today would be taken out immediately.
No warning.
No second chances.
Just the unmistakable aroma of this house is fighting something.

There is no masking that.
Not with Febreze.
Not with essential oils.
Not with prayer.

The animals knew before we even said a word.

Nail clippers came out and suddenly everyone went full fugitive. Dogs vanished like they had outstanding warrants. Cats developed Olympic-level parkour skills. One disappeared under furniture that hasn’t been moved since the Clinton administration. Another froze mid-room, eyes wide, pretending invisibility was a valid survival tactic.

It was a coordinated AWOL situation over toenail clippings and “the dip.”

Trust was broken.
Alliances dissolved.
The household entered its feral era.

Meanwhile, the humans?

We’re dotted up with antifungal cream like we’re prepping for a dermatology-themed rave. Neck. Wrist. Arm. One on our son. Two on Alan. I lost count of all mine…because… Of Course.

Just walking around shiny and optimistic, pretending this is fine. Totally fine. Very normal. Absolutely not itching.

And then—because life always stacks chaos—there’s my husband.

Six months ago, he decided his beard was no longer just a beard, but a journey. A pilgrimage. A spiritual quest. Gray. Darker. Lighter. Something in between. Today, he tried to take it back to its original color.

It turned orange.

Not “warm auburn.”
Not “sun-kissed copper.”
Orange.

The kind of orange that makes a man stare into the mirror and quietly renegotiate his identity, his masculinity, and whether mirrors should still exist.

So I shaved it. All of it. Past the dye. Down to the truth. A very close, very gray beard. He stood there like someone who had just lost a vision board and a personality trait in the same afternoon.

Outside, the street was calm. Peaceful. Picturesque.

Inside?
Animals plotting escape.
Antifungal cream everywhere.
A man mourning a beard.
And dignity officially clocking out for the day.

And so there I sat—outside, smoking a cigarette, questioning every decision that led me here—wearing my Victoria’s Secret eighty-dollar yoga leggings, now beautifully accessorized with orange beard tinsel, antifungal residue, and the unmistakable energy of this woman has surrendered to the chaos.

People walked by with their dogs and their earbuds and their confidence.

They saw calm.
They saw normal.
They saw a woman “relaxing outside.”

They did not smell sulfur.
They did not see animals in witness protection.
They did not see a man grieving a beard.

And that’s when it hit me—melting under the fumes like a cautionary tale:

Behind closed doors, we all feel ordinary.

Inside our own lives, we’re not impressive. We’re not mysterious. We’re not curated. We’re just trying to get through the day without something else escaping, itching, or turning orange.

It’s the outsiders looking in that make lives seem different. More put together. More chaotic. More glamorous. More tragic.

Inside?
It’s routines.
It’s smells.
It’s messes.
It’s love.
It’s laughing when things cross fully into you cannot make this up territory.

People think they want to see behind closed doors.

Until the door opens
and reality hits them with lime and sulfur
and absolutely refuses to apologize.

Because the truth is, some houses just have different smells.

Some smell like coffee and clean laundry.
Some smell like dinner on the stove and emotional stability.
Some smell like candles that cost more than my self-respect.

Ours just happens to be rocking a strong sulfur-forward profile today.

So here I sit—outside, smoking my cigarette, side-eyeing my animals like they personally betrayed me, questioning my life choices—watching my brisk-walking neighbor power past with the confidence of someone whose house does not currently smell like a medieval apothecary.

For one unhinged moment, I consider following her.
Just falling in behind her.
Charting a new life path.
Pretending I belong to a different house.
One that smells like eucalyptus and personal growth.

I take one step.

The smell follows.

Turns out, you can’t outrun ringworm.
You can’t jog away from sulfur.
And no amount of cardio will save you from your own living room.

So I stay.
The animals stay.
The smell stays.

Behind closed doors, we’re all ordinary.

Some of us are just ordinary with aggressive ventilation needs.

And some days, the silver lining resembles beard tinsel.

---

“Ordinary is what life looks like when no one’s watching.”

With love, laughter, and the windows wide open,
Tina N. Campbell | Scribed in Light