Friday started out like a normal day. I dropped Caroline off at school, came home and got back in bed with a cup of hot choffee (Half hot chocolate, half coffee. Trademark pending.) and waited for Regis and Kelly to come on. This is what my bout with SAD has done to me. It has led me down a dark road that causes me to turn on bad morning television because how am I supposed to leave the house and accomplish anything when it’s cold and rainy outside?
But right about the time I finished my choffee (trademark pending), I saw a strange light flooding in through my bedroom windows. And in the words of the oath I recited during my sorority pledge presentation in college, LO, THE SUN.
All of a sudden I turned back into a productive member of society assuming that the sign of a productive society member is someone who cleans their bathrooms, vacuums their rugs, sweeps the wood floors, showers, blow dries their hair and gets dressed in something other than velour sweatpants and a sweatshirt that reads “Texas Aggie Football 1993”.
(Sadly, 1993 was about the last time Aggie football was good and that is why I hold on to the shirt.)
And, yes, I realize I could have cleaned the bathrooms during my bout with SAD/becoming a hermit, but I kept thinking my maid was going to show up until I realized I don’t have a maid. Which just caused me to fall further into depression.
But the sun turned it all around for me. I felt like a new person, a person with dreams, goals, and ambitions! Well, maybe I’m getting carried away. It was the sun, not Zig Ziglar.
Speaking of Zig Ziglar, when I began my first job out of college, an ill-advised foray into financial sales, the company paid for me to attend a motivational seminar featuring a variety of speakers who were supposed to get you FIRED UP about life and your career. It totally worked and I left the Alamodome determined to be the best financial salesperson I could be despite my inability to balance my own checkbook. But then the O.J. Simpson trial started and I was powerless to do anything except watch the trial while I ate Ruffles potato chips dipped in ranch dressing. So you can add the death of my financial career to O.J.’s long list of crimes.
Anyway, the sun stayed out all day Friday and, much to my delight, showed up again on Saturday. P had to work all day Saturday because the rain has caused them to fall behind on a lot of jobs, but Caroline and I spent most of the day outside just soaking up the sun. After a winter full of nothing but gray skies, I’m afraid this may be the summer that I officially veer over into George Hamilton territory. But I have to remember that a sunny 70 degree day feels differently than a sunny 105 degree day. I’m sure MaMaw will pull out her sun hat by the time June hits.
Sunday morning decided to be a buzzkill and showed up with clouds and some drizzle. Caroline and I are both suffering from a lot of congestion and a chronic hacking cough so we stayed home from church, but she was invited to a birthday party later in the day. After the party, she came home and was looking through the party favor bag and found a candy necklace. Clearly there is nothing more precious to a six year old girl than an accessory made of processed sugar.
She took a bite of it and got a funny look on her face. I asked, “What’s wrong?” and she said, “I THINK MY TOOTH IS LOOSE.”
I wasn’t sure if I believed her because we’ve had loose tooth false alarms several times that have just turned out to be a wayward piece of Chex Mix, but, sure enough, one of her bottom teeth is officially loose. I’m not sure if it was loose before she bit into the candy necklace or if the candy necklace was the perpetrator, but whatever. She finally has a tooth to wiggle after years of bemoaning her dental misfortune.
And that’s all we heard about the rest of the day.
She wasn’t sure if she could put up her clean clothes because of her loose tooth. She didn’t know if she could carry her plate to the sink because of her loose tooth. She could hardly eat her tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwich because of her loose tooth. A tooth, by the way, that is less than half the size of my pinky nail.
When I tucked her into bed she thought she might need some Tylenol to help with the pain of her loose tooth and definitely needed a lullaby because of THE LOOSE TOOTH.
Honestly, where does she get the drama? Doesn’t she know there are real people, LIKE HER MOTHER, who are suffering from serious things like SAD?
But I sang her the lullaby because I knew it would make her smile. And I don’t know how many days we have left of that little smile that looks like baby Chiclets all lined up in a row.
They’ll be gone like the sun before I know it.