How many mornings do I wake up thinking about the hours until I can go to bed? By mornings, I mean before I have even risen from the warm sheets and moved slowly, creaking down the old cypress stairs. In the cold dark winter my mind goes to this place as naturally as I relish a rainy day spent inside, piddling and watching old movies. In the hot summer, I awake early too, not by the winter alarm clock but my two year old son, an early riser in the very roots of his being. My mind does not naturally embrace the day and its’ activities and the realization of this is cause for concern. This effort to fast forward may seem laughable, a common ground on which to form friendships, innocent enough. But is it? Why am I wishing away today? Too many days that I will never get a do over and my one chance for an encounter or meaningful gesture that could change someone’s life or really, my very own.

I think sometimes I do this because quite simply, it’s easier. My bed as a refuge has been a theme in my life for as long as I can remember or at least since I was a teenager, mourning my brother and my bed was the safe place, away from prying eyes and worried roommates. I could crawl beneath the covers and weep until there were no tears left and then fall into a troubled sleep, deep from exhaustion but tremulous with the hidden anxious, though unconscious thoughts. Blissful sleep only because one can’t remember the demons from which they are hiding when they are asleep and so, I slept. Today and for the many years prior, sleeping is and has been in short supply and so, I just think about it. Long for rest and the chance to curl up in a dark cool room, a bed with crisp clean white sheets, to the hum of an old dusty box fan. Sleep peacefully as today passes by me unaware.

There is always something to cause one to hide and these days it is the gravity of Amos. The truth and coming to terms with it, sometimes more than I can bear, and so, my bedroom beckons me for stillness and rest. Lately though, I can’t rest or the need to sleep has lessened as the need to write grows stronger and beckons me from beneath the blankets to my husband’s den downstairs, a room with beautiful pine wainscoting and an inviting fireplace. Never mind the drafty windows and cobwebs peering down, instead the large old leather chair, purchased from our Habitat store for $60, is an inviting nest to settle into with a fleece blanket. It’s warmth wrapped around me encourages my being to pause and ponder and type the words that are music to my soul. Instead of wishing away today, I am knee deep in it, thinking, reflecting, immersed in its’ events and the minuscule moments that add together to form the details that form the day’s happenings.

I have been wishing time away and didn’t know it. It wasn’t until I found myself called from the fortress of my nest of pillows and tangled comforters that I realized I had been hiding from the days, sleeping away the angst that has plagued me. Different variables at different times, terrible moments but sometimes just life’s worries or annoyances, like a long day with a grumpy little person or several of them. When my oldest children were 3, 2 and not quite 1, I remember waking up and thinking to myself how could we possibly fill up the next twelve hours? It was an honest question. It was a long day. Was I wishing it away? Perhaps or maybe not, but I know better now than to start the day on the defensive. Instead, I shall make an effort to rise happily, anxious for coffee maybe, but ready for little people and all that comes with them. Growing up before my eyes and I would rather remember smiling at the sunrise and the sunsets, ours for the taking.