There is nothing quite like several days of snow-fall and temperatures bouncing around in the single digits to necessitate peeling myself away from the wood stove and getting outside for some fresh air for a little while. When I catch myself talking a little too much out loud to the cats then I know it's time to go be around some human beings; if not for my sake, for the sake of my two furry friends. I catch them looking at each other when I talk to them and imagine them saying "She's got cabin fever." So rude; though in my defense, I always say that if I had to be reincarnated as a cat, I'd want to belong to me.
I loaded the kitchen trash into the trunk of the car and headed down the mountain. Everywhere has a new frosting of pure white. I can handle the cold and snow much easier than the lack of light mid-winter; and have always joked that Spring-time for me begins on December 22nd when the days become ever so slowly, longer. Even if it's by seconds at first and then minutes each day, its like slowly opening a gift!
So on this beautiful, sunny "Spring" day, I drove into town to pick up the mail. Windows cracked open just enough to breathe in fresh air, stereo cranked to a best-of-the-80's station. Van Halen - "Runnin' With the Devil", and let myself be transported in time.
My friend of forty years, Spencer, texted me a couple of weeks ago to wish me a Merry Christmas and to say that he'd heard a song on the radio that reminded him of the old days. The days when we were all young, married, and slightly starving students. Spencer and I worked together at the same company for a little while. A disaster restoration company. I had no car and he'd give me a ride to and from work. When we arrived to company headquarters each morning we'd get our assignments and then load up into the back of a moving van. Sans seatbelts of course. We were as good as another piece of equipment. But hey! It was 1984, and we were grateful for the work.
Downtown Phoenix. A medical center had burned, but not to the point of entire destruction. We were there to clean up and wipe down. There was no working electricity that I can remember. It was smoky, dark, and hot. After our shift was over, Spencer found me and we rode in the back of the van back to headquarters. I felt like bawling, but didn't. I was glad he was my friend, and that he had a great attitude about our less than glamorous work. Bumping down the road, I looked at him and saw how covered in soot he was, and realized that I must look the same. By the time we switched over to his car and headed down the freeway my head was pounding. He was driving fast and had hard-rock playing on the stereo. I didn't dare tell him how awful I thought his music was and how much worse it made my throbbing head feel. I needed his transportation and this was his car; his radio, his rules.
He dropped me off at my apartment complex. I went straight to the pool to dangle my feet in the water and to think about where I could apply for a job elsewhere the next day.
I was eighteen years old when I married the first time. I had no grand ideas of things being struggle or worry free; and certainly no grand ideas of having lots of money. My parents had started out with a camper/trailer; one that didn't even have a toilet. Lying on my parents bed, looking at old black and white photos, I'd ask Mama about certain ones. "And this one here....this was where you lived?!" "Oh, I'd just go to whatever restaurant was closest every morning to be sick.", my mother would tell me of her first pregnancy and their first little home. Per usual, her optimism and dreamy smile when speaking of that time, romanticized it in my mind.
All I ever wanted to be was a mother. When I'd play with my baby-dolls, I'd occasionally pretend to take them to the hospital (the little make-shift space I'd made in the space between the key-board and pedals of the upright piano, pretending first to be the mother of my baby-dolls and then in turn, pretend to be the doctor in the under-the piano hospital.
In high school, when pressed by school counselors to consider what sort of career I'd like to choose, I could only think that other than being a mother, perhaps maybe I could become a nurse; better yet a mid-wife. That way I could be surrounded with babies all the time, until I had my own.
After my brief stint working as a wiper-downer of smoke-covered walls, I eventually found a job as a a receptionist for a CPA firm, and even learned to do some book-keeping and data entry. I worked with wonderful people and was daily, grateful for my environment. Ironically, I got that job because the receptionist that normally worked there was on maternity leave. I was only supposed to be there until she came back. So desperate to stay, anything I was asked to do, I'd do and then do extra. I was taught, "Don't just babysit, do the dishes while you're there." I must have impressed my employer enough for him to create a job for me to stay there even after the first receptionist returned to work. She was putting her husband through law school, and only came back to work part-time until he graduated. They lived in a shack (literally) that was in the back of her parents house. Shack....camper/trailer....it was all a temporary means to a much different and more financially prosperous end.
In December of 1986 my own real life baby was born, and she was my dream come true. I asked the doctor and every nurse that came into my hospital room, if they'd ever seen such a beautiful baby in their whole entire career. They'd smile "Oh never!" We wrapped up our Christmas beanie'd and bootie'd baby and brought her home on New Year's Eve. I could hardly put her down to do anything for fear she'd grow a little while I wasn't watching. And each time I picked her back up, I could swear she did.
Having my arms full of babies and children was all I ever wanted; and for the next almost three decades I had the most fulfilling and rewarding "career" I could've ever imagined. Mother.
Motherhood is a career you never truly retire from. Even adult children need their parents and parents need their children. It's just that now I can't talk baby-talk to my kids anymore, or kiss their toes or nibble on their ears. It would be a bit strange. The cats will have to do for now. "Come here Lola and Freya! Let me see those widdle toe beans.....!"
A cat lady's gonna do what she's gotta do.
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