Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Even if Just for a Little While…

It’s Saturday morning and I’m in my Saturday Morning Happy Place.  You know…when you don’t really have anything pressing to do that day.  I mean, I had a long run to get in, and there’s always laundry, but those things could happen at any point during the day.  There was nowhere that I urgently needed to be, and there was nothing that I urgently needed to do…and I was happy.

There would be no alarm assaulting me out of my peaceful slumber….no counter assault by me to frantically pound the snooze button.  Nope, it was and I arose feeling rested and looking forward to just lazing about.  And I didn’t feel one bit guilty about it either.  The past month has been extremely busy at work, and what I have been feeling more than anything else is an urgent need to catch up on my sleep, so sleeping in until was very much needed!

Joy filled my every pore as I rolled over, grabbed my Kindle, and spent the next hour reading in bed.  Can you say bliss? 

My blissful spell was broken by the blare of the ringing phone.  It’s a little past , which is a respectable hour, so, really, it could be anyone calling. 

Except it’s not anyone calling; it’s my mom.  I answer the phone quietly so as not to wake the kids…I don’t know why I bother…they both sleep like rocks!  However, the blare of the phone had startled me and I didn’t want to add a loud, “Hello” to the cacophony.

“Hello,” I say quietly.

“Hi, Jane,” my mom says, “are you asleep?”

Since I am technically in bed, which is technically where I sleep, I say, “Yes.”  I know, I know, it’s a total fib, but it’s such a quiet morning…and my book is really good…and, well…and I just didn’t feel like talking…is that so wrong?

“Oh,” she says, “sorry.”  There is a brief pause, after which she says, “Well, I called to tell you something, but now I forgot what it was.  I’ll call you back at .  Bye.”

It’s safe to assume that what she was calling about had something to do with something she was worried about.  You should hear the messages on my answering machine from the last week or so: tsunami, earthquakes, radiation, oh my!  There is probably a TV on non-stop in her “home” and I’m guessing that nobody really monitors what the “residents” watch.

But just once I’d like to pick up the phone and have a normal mom on the other end.  Just once I’d love to hear this imaginary, normal mom suggest we go grab a cup of coffee, or go for a walk, or to a movie, or go and do anything else on God’s green earth that doesn’t involve me talking her down from the worry cliff she chooses to climb every single day. 

Intellectually I know that’s not my destiny.  In my head I know that will never happen. But in my heart…well, in my heart I just wish things were different sometimes.  In my heart I sometimes wish the role of “daughter of a crazy mom” had gone to someone else…and not to me.  In my heart I just wish someone else had the crazy mom and I got to have the normal mom…even if just for a little while.

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