my mini says that worryin' is my hobby. she's wrong about this. designin' doo dads for delivery via download is my hobby...worryin' is my full-time job. i have lots o experience at it as i started practicin' the art very early on.
i think i was like most kids - not a care in the world...until i hit the age where i realized something bad could happen to my mother. this is hard for any child but when it happened to me, my mom worked the late shift as a nurse at orange memorial hospital. orange was the town next to ours and was about a fifteen minute trip with the view offerin up not much but the cemetery bout halfway between and a few houses sprinkled along the dark two lane road.
after backin' our old chevrolet outta the gravel driveway, she would drive to the end of our street, turn left and then drive a short way til she'd hit the intersection o round bunch and texas avenue - the main drag where one of the three traffic lights in our town dangled above. here she'd turn left, head over the cow bayou bridge and then it was a straight shot til she turned into the hospital parkin' lot.
layin' in bed next to the open window, i would try to listen for her car as long as possible and when i couldn't any longer, i'd start prayin and makin' all sorts o deals with god if he would just let her make it all that way without anything bad happenin to her. i would force myself to stay awake, starin in the dark at the blue clock radio between me and queenie's twin beds, until enough time had passed for her to be nursin' some sickly person or for the police to call tellin us she had been in an accident. i hadn't yet realized that bad things also happened durin the daylight hours or that there were horrible diseases that could strike grown-ups AND children without warnin so i would wake up the next mornin' and set aside my worryin' until my mom left for work again that night.
this nightly ritual continued until i reached the body snatchin' years where my concerns, in the dark or light, were all about me. a body snatcher feels nothin' bad can happen to them worse than not bein popular or not havin the right thing to wear and i didn't worry about either of these as i was popular therefore whatever i wore was the right thing for me to be wearin. unfortunately i have failed at teachin this to mini who spends way too much homework time fillin the floor with piles o hangerless clothes, while attemptin to find 'the right thing'.
most girls are allowed to keep the body snatcher workin at full force at least til they leave their teen years altho a few end up keepin their body snatchin ways thru-out the rest o their life. we all have known some who have and may even have a few as close relatives. my own body snatchin' years came to an abrupt end the summer before my senior year durin a bike ride with my best friend debbie and queenie's friend karen. ridin in a single file, just feet from turnin off o texas avenue and only a few minutes from arrivin home, a big truck driven by a man who had just knocked back a few drinks at the 'bamboo hut' ( the only place to knock back a few in our small town), ran over all three of us. we were all taken to orange memorial hospital, capable o carin for my broken back. my friend's injuries were deemed more serious and they were taken to a larger hospital nearby. weeks passed before i was told that neither debbie or karen survived.
this tragic event changed who i was and would always be. and while it didn't cause me to be fearful of bad things happening to me in the future, it did cause a previous night-time hobby to begin again as my full-time job. since then i am always worryin' about somethin bad happenin to the people i love...or know..or have met or may meet or seen a picture of or have ever been born. i worry about bad things happenin to anybody. over the years, the level of this worryin has been higher at some times and lower at others but has always been a constant in my life. so much so that i doubted i would ever be able to be someone's mother as worryin about my child would keep me from doin the motherin they needed at the same time. fortunately, the bliss that i experienced once my prince charmin appeared enabled me to stop worryin long enough to make mini. of course the minute i found out she was in the makin, i resumed my previous worryin state and when she arrived 5 weeks early and i was officially defined as someone's mother, i found out what real worryin was. all that i had done before was nothin compared to mother worry.
the problem with worryin about somethin happenin to your child is...just when you get a handle on the things you are worried about happening to em, everything changes and you have to re-organize to keep a new set of em straight. you also have to keep your spouse lectured about it all and this is tough cause most of them aren't too good at it - at least mine isn't. you also have to have all the 'nags' practiced and ready to fly outta your mouth when needed. a perfect example o this is last summer when a friend o mini's invited her over for the afternoon. when we arrived, the girl met us at the car and had her swimsuit on. although mini hadn't said they were goin swimmin, bein a pro, i was prepared with the slew of 'nags' to be recited in this situation. when i turned off the car and said i'd come in for a minute to say hi to the girl's mom (and then have a chance to leave some o my 'nags' with her), the friend announced that she wasn't home and wouldn't be til late that night and then told mini they were gonna go swimmin at the university pool down the street. mini was back home and listenin to some new naggin' before she knew what happened to her. i hadn't realized it was time for addin 'parentless home invite' to the worry and naggin list. since then i try to look even further into the future so that i am even more prepared for what i should be worryin about.
i made a big mistake with mini that i wish i could undo. i have entertained her through-out her life with tales of my previous life...dates with dashin daredevils that led to some death defyin' days....danglin' on ropes from big boulders high above the ground, kayakin' down fast and freezin' rivers, crash landin a plane on a county club golf course and bein' run over by a drunkin driver....to name just a few. she has come to think of her mother as brave and capable o doin just about anything. this is why she can't understand why sayin' the words 'when can i hang out with my friends at the mall?' puts a fear into me like nothin i have ever felt. i am sure there are words i'll be hearin in the future even more frightenin'...but these have been weighin heavily upon me since they fell outta her mouth recently.
i have spent a good deal o time ponderin' this query. i realize my full-time worryin job causes me concern where maybe there should be none...i sometimes - though not too often - wish i could be more like mini's daddy. most o the time he seems not to have a care in the world. he attributes this to the fact that he's just like an 'etch-a-sketch' - says he wakes up each mornin and just shakes his screen clear o anything that happened before and starts all over with a clean slate. knowin this is how my child's father starts each day may be why i continue to take my full-time worryin job as seriously as i do.
anyway...i'm sure there are plenty o pre-teen body snatchers spending long hours hangin out in the malls across america that make it back home in one piece. just the same, after all my ponderin', i finally answered mini's question about when she could hang out at the mall...i told her she was free to join her friends at the mall o her choice when she was able to earn the money to buy her own car to drive herself there and once there, she could buy anything she wanted with whatever she had left after buyin' the car. i'd like to think this will be the end o this subject but in my professional opinion i worry it won't be.
the art i blogged up for your entertainment today was part o mini's holiday haul. lately she refuses to wear anything but vintage clothing and for christmas she wanted santa to add to her personal collection. 'he' purchased many wonderful things for her from ebay (wish there was a way to do that without it takin' so much time - i already have a hobby and my full-time worryin to do and this ebay thing took time away from both!) but many didn't make it in time to wrap and put under the tree....so i made a bit of a scrapbook for her...with pictures of her wearin the vintage clothin' (usin' the teeny shots from ebay) along side some of her favorite people. it ended up bein better than if the actual dresses had made it on time and since the packages have been arrivin' all month, it's been alot more fun.
thanks so much for stoppin by - i do so hope to get my bloggin goin more often...i promise i have it on my list o things to worry about!
