Rock a bye me

Sleep.  Why is such a simple, intrinsic, basic human drive so hard to get enough of.  I work hard enough, why can't I sleep?  My shoulder hurts nearly all the time, I work in an emergency room so sometimes I come home with strange stuff on my mind, I want to play with my kid when I do finally get home, but none of these are the real reasons I can't sleep.  

I'm a natural born night owl.  Plain and simple.  When I wrote my manuscript, 90% of it was between the hours of 11pm and 5am.  Anything I did during the day was editing or printing.  I think better at night.  I'm astonishingly awake.  The first time I did a 3am shift in the ER I was so nervous.  I tried to take a nap beforehand.  I worked 12 straight hours until 5 in the morning walking my tail off...yet still I was awake.  

So here I am, awake as ever, have been since yesterday at 9 am.  I have to be back at work at 7 but I'm here typing because I cannot, no matter how hard I try or how many sheep I count, sleep.  Not happening.

I want to hear from all you night owls and sleep deprived zombies with big dark circles under your eyes.  What do you to catch a few winks?

Inner Child

Something happened to me.  I'm not sure when it happened, but I realized it today.  I've started to nurture my inner child.  Now, before you laugh, consider how important it is.  

When I was a kid, I didn't really get to be a kid.  I had to work starting at age 13, and as I've said before, we only got 4 channels on our television.  I grew up without a mother, and I was largely responsible for my little brother, that is, until I got kicked out of the house at 16.  Now it wasn't all bad, but I did miss out on a lot of things other kids got to do.  For instance, like going to a New Kids on the Block concert, which I will do for the first time in October.  

Something in me snapped a few weeks ago.  Somewhere deep down in my brain just clicked on.  Something rose to the surface.  It said, I'm tired of working all the time.  I'm tired of concentrating.  I'm tired of figuring out how to be a responsible adult, a good mother, a good wife, a good daughter, a good friend, a good PAC, a good barista, a good author.  I wanna watch movies, listen to music, have fun, be a kid again.

It just so happens that I have a kid now, and therefore have good cover.  I can go into a store and buy Cinderella with my 3 year old attached and no one will think otherwise.  I can live vicariously through her.  I had never even watched Cinderella!  Or Snow White, or most of the other Disney movies.  I downloaded Enchanted for my iPhone and laughed out loud watching it late one night in bed.  I took the family to Disney World and loved every minute of it.  I bought We Are the World and the first episode of Wonder Woman on iTunes!  I went to the theatre and saw Wall-E.  Fun is my mission when I'm not at work.

I am relishing this time.  I've never allowed myself such a good time.  Maybe it's a virus I caught in the ER....

You should do it.  Just mentally kick your heels back and enjoy the ride of life.  It can really be a lot of fun if you let it.   

The Magical World of Disney

i apologize for the long absence lately, but I've been working nonstop - however, I did manage a vacation. We went to Disney World last week and let me tell you - I never had that much fun as a kid! I don't know if it was experiencing it as an adult, watching my little girl experience it, or just having 5 straight days off from work...but whatever it was, man we had a wonderful time! You should go. I've now decided that I need to watch all the Disney movies. You know, until last night, I'd never watched Cinderella? I've never seen Jungle Book, or Sleeping Beauty or countless others. How did I miss all this growing up? My mother took me to Disney, and so did my step-mother, and so did my grandfather (during the one week of my life that I spent with him), but I can't remember having as much fun as I had last week. Now I'm obsessed. Sort of. I'm wearing a Mickey Mouse tee shirt right now. :)

iPhone = mucho fun and addiction

I finally went out and purchased the iPhone last week. I've been wanting one since before they actually came onto the market, and I've waited patiently until I could semi-afford one. Lemme tell you, it is so much fun. LOVE it. But there's an issue. I think I'm going to get addicted. And my little girl is already into playing with it too. She knows that if you touch the flower you get to see the pictures and she's really into the music too. I think the Apple folks are genius. I remember when I was a teen, my father bought us an Apple IIC that took floppy disks! Haven't had an Apple product since. Now I proudly display the little white Apple sticker on my car window. I love having all my favorite pics of Sarah right there, and all my favorite Fleetwood Mac songs right there, and I love being able to surf the "real" web, and get instant access to my email accounts, and text messaging too...and then there's the PHONE! All in one. Perfect for my, at the moment, harried life! You owe it to yourself to scrounge up the $400 and get one too.

I hate my gallbladder. Let's go skating.

In some ways, I'd like to reach in there and rip the thing out myself, and in some ways I'd like to soothe it into releasing the prickly painful stones inside. But mostly, I'd just like to get a full night's sleep once in a while. I got a little complacent, stopped taking the tablets, starting eating crap again, and lo and behold, the last two weeks have been yucky.
But, on a much happier note, I got a chance to take my little Sarah rollerskating. Boy oh boy was that fun. We had a ball. I caught myself laughing out loud rather uncontrollably! My cousin's little girl was having a birthday party so we drove to South Carolina, right down the street from where we lived when Sarah was born and went to this party and I have to say, I haven't had that much fun in a long time. Even Hal got on a pair of skates and went around a time or two with me! My cousins were all giggling and reminiscing. Had it not been for my kid, I think I'd have felt like a kid again! Sarah was afraid at first, but when she saw everyone else doing it, she was ready to go. She held our hands the first time around the rink but after that she wanted to be let go. It was so cute to see her try so hard to be independent when she was doing this for the first time ever! I can't wait to teach her how to drive. :)

Happy Easter

I'm tired of sayin' cheese Mommy!

Early morning reflection

My life is interesting. More now than I think it ever has been before. I grew up in the country, and as dreamy and wonderful as that sounds, I was usually bored to tears. We had four television stations that our antenna could receive and one of them was always full of static. I can remember my uncle Keith banging on the t.v. set because sometimes that made it more clear, or turning the knob on the fancy schmancy electric antenna turner to turn the thing in a different direction outside so it might pick up a better signal for a station. Once the desired best spot was found, then everyone tip toed around in the house so as to not upset the television itself. It was delicate business getting your station in clear.
Chores took a much longer time than they do now, but that was probably best given the default boredom that I experienced. We had no dishwasher, that is, except for me and my grandmother. Occasionally I'd guilt my brother into helping with this, but he was six years younger and so short that he'd have to stand on a chair just to get up high enough to work in the sink, and he was young so he was usually more interested in squirting me with the sprayer than actually rinsing the dishes. We hung our clothes out on a clothesline which left my jeans feeling stiff as a board and everything else looking misshapen. My socks had little brown spots at the top or the toe from the wooden clothespin residue. Hanging clothes out might now be hailed as a great fuel saving alternative to the electric clothes dryer, but I cannot imagine going back. I was always so irritated by the inconvenience and the lackluster results. And when it rained for days on end? Laundromat up at the gas station in town. Not a fun experience at all, especially when you don't even know dryer sheets exist.
Nevertheless, my country upbringing has led me to appreciate all things technical and innovative. The iPhone absolutely wows me, and one day I will save up enough money to buy one. I've loved email since my very first telnet account in 1993. My cell phone is so useful that I don't even have a landline anymore. And I drive a Volkswagen with airbags that surround the interior of my car. How did we get from living in the woods to big cities with tall skyscrapers, electronics that operate on information sent right through the air, and underground and underwater highways and rail systems? I think it was because people were bored to tears and looking for a way to get something done in a bit easier fashion.
My life now is incredibly not boring. I have three jobs and I'm trying to start a business. I also have a 3 and a half year old little girl that I mostly keep during the day. I work around her schedule so that I can be there for those silly sweet moments with her. But my evenings are spent in the emergency room dealing with the latest trauma and the impact it's having on a family, or I'm serving up some piping hot coffee and discussing politics or some other topic with the newest customer at Starbucks. Sometimes I'm out taking pictures of a community event for the paper-- my tiny job that I adore. And once in a while I sell some Tupperware to people who come asking for it.
I used to think that to be successful I had to have a career, I had to make lots of money, I had to have a fat bank account, and I had to have the perfect house, drive the perfect car, have the perfect, smartest child, and be married to the perfect man. None of that is true. Sometimes events seem unfortunate when really they are a Godsend. My letting go of those ideals freed me up to appreciate the real world around me like I used to when I was a child. Because on those days when I was bored to tears, I found wonder and amazement in the things around me - like the way tree frogs sing at night, watching a litter of puppies be born, watching fruits and vegetables go from seedlings to harvest, enjoying the simplicity of the silence in the wee hours of the morning, as I am right now. I think now that the formula for happiness and personal satisfaction is opening myself up to new things, and when nothing seems fair or right, charging out into the world and creating the opportunity that I want to have. I wanted my life to be more flexible. I wanted to spend more time with my child. I wanted to be really happy and appreciated at work and to be able to align myself with the same ideals as my employer. I wanted to develop deeper connections with others. I wanted to go home nearly every night wowed with something or someone I'd experienced that day that kept my attention.
I have all of that now. Pure excitement. Happy thoughts. Things are really great.
Except for my broken foot. But I'll complain about that at another time.