God, Grant Me...Pretty Please

Thank you to Unconscious Mutterings, Week 224, for the prompts.

Nap  ::  Must.

One of my earliest memories involves naps, mostly their avoidance.  I remember trying on all the slips and nightgowns in my closet and on my dress-up rack, so that I could sit in my room, shivering from the cold, since it was the dead of winter, and copy the little pig-tailed girl in the pale sun dress, the one in my picture books, who skipped barefooted through bluebells and daffodils in a field, followed closely by her friends, the fuzzy, brown squirrel and bunny with white, fluffy tail.  Obviously, I hadn’t grasped the value of the power nap (or of the seasons).   Today at 56, I can toot along, being productive and doing whatever it is I do, when all of a sudden, I feel as if I have suddenly and accidentally slammed myself into a brick wall.  My body turns into a three ton weight, my eyelids droop, and my thinking gets muddy and indecisive.  “I’m done,” I say to myself, as I brush myself off and check for bruises.  I go straight to bed, even if I have to drive there from halfway across Pittsburgh, and I don’t move for 30 minutes.  Once I wake up, I morph into a brand, new person―energized, vital, full of pep and vigor―and am ready to tackle the day as if it were brand new, even if it really isn't.  Works like a charm every time.  I guess when I was five years old, I didn’t appreciate a good thing when I saw one.

Amazing  ::  What a pain in the neck I can be.

“Surprise!” I yelled, as I popped up from behind the kitchen counter.

“Oh, my God!  Weasie!” Kate squealed.  “What are you doing here?!”

We hugged and laughed and opened presents and ate and danced and sang and giggled.  Then the party was over.

Here’s the thing about flying to Portland, Oregon to surprise a good friend for her 50th birthday.  An unexpected birthday guest, a fun idea at the time, became an unexpected house guest, a bad idea, in fact.  If I had only paused long enough to think it through, during one of my more lucid moments, like after a good afternoon power nap, I could have seen that maybe, just maybe, this wasn’t such a terrific idea.  As it was, Kate was under a deadline for an enormous project that she had deferred until she could attend to it wholeheartedly.  Of course, she wanted to get started the day after her big surprise party, but couldn’t because she not only did she not know about the party, but she did not know about me.  She had to put me in the spare bedroom, where all her guests go, but which wasn't ready, since she didn't know I was coming, and over which she felt embarrassed.  During my visit, I was never quite able to shake off the feeling that I should be mortified.

Sometimes friends, despite their best intentions, are truly burdensome.

God, grant me the serenity to accept things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to stop and think it all the way through, before deciding which is which.

Have a great holiday weekend, filled with anticipated, planned, and perfectly reasonable delights.

From Louise