Sometimes I wish I could just be a kid again.

You know. Bomb pops melting over a fist in the summer. Giggling over typing "boobless" in the calculator screen. Not needing to know when paychecks hit bank accounts, not needing to make sure the garbage cans are out on collection day, not having to stand in the shower and manipulate your breasts, your arm up under the spray, just checking, just to be sure, just in cse. To be free of filling the car up with gas and making sure that the bathroom has toilet paper and that the dog food bowl is always refilled.

I know I am idealizing things. I wasn't much of a kid when I was a kid, and if you unhooked the latch in me now, I couldn't be a kid again. I think I'm missing those parts.

Still, sometimes it gets to be a lot, you know? Builders asking me to make decisions about door handles. What do I care about door handles? Door handles go on doors, they just are, they don't need me to decide on what they should be.

The days start earlier and earlier. Not only do I not have the time to sleep until noon, it's now physically impossible. Up at and 'em before 8. Lately, it's up and at 'em before 7. The sun comes up and the birds come out and my feet hit the floorboards, both my ankles and the wood creaking with temporary disuse.

When you're a kid (a typical kid, anyway) you don't have worry. I was a worrier, always. I still am. But these days there's a lot more to worry about.

Melissa. Melissa was thrown from her horse Tuesday night. They thought she'd broken her arm but instead she'd broken a bone just above her tailbone. She'll be ok, the fracture will heal, she just has to take it easy and no horse riding for a while. I sent off a care package yesterday but I can see the concern in Angus' eyes. He's never been happy that the Swunt bought a horse as Melissa has had many spills from horses, and Angus worries. She'll recover and get right back on the horse again, and even though she wears a helmet and safety vest, she still gets hurt.

My grandma. My grandma is in the hospital having had major heart surgery. She's recovering now, but when I heard that while on the ventilator she had tears in her eyes from the pain my heart got ejected out of my throat. I truly believe she'll be ok, because deep down inside she's a fighter, but you just don't want anyone to go through that. I think she'll outlive all of us, and I don't want to be proven wrong on that.

And Vicki. Vicki is still hanging in there but she's been very, very ill. Pick one of those "some people experience complications from the surgery, such as a, b, c, and d" and she has been hit with all of them. One of her twin boys is doing better and had his first feed, although heartbreakingly she didn't get to be the one to feed him. Her other little guy, though, is set for heart surgery on Friday. He's been diagnosed with atrial septal defect, and he's on a ventilator. I can't imagine what she's going through, I only know I wish she wasn't.

As a kid, you don't think about these things. When someone you care about hurts, you feel bad for them, but 20 minutes later you forget because time is of the essence when you're young. As we age, time locks us down, it holds us in - we want to remember every little detail about something but we get robbed of it, forced as we are to deal with the next moment. The babies we're carrying get heavier and heavier. The people we love feel their lungs invaded by forced pressure. Seasons blend together but each day requires decisions.

And hope. Each day requires hope.

As do the people that I love who are hurting.

And no matter how much I would like for the days of innocence and youth and light-heartedness to return, the truth is life is boxed with responsibilities - some of them good - and accountability, much of it weighing us down.

-H.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 08:13 AM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
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