The Bedtime Story

A bouquet of sharpened yellow pencils arranged in a blue colored mason jar announces the arrival of fall. Summer is done. It’s time for the serious business of schooling to begin. Yet, this is when we start reading the story.

This time it’s different! She’s reading and I’m listening.  The story is that of Peter and the Star Catchers!

In the light of the teddy-bear lamp, Snoopy, Charlie Brown and Lucy are getting ready for a game of football upon the even field of a nightstand. The lamp itself painted with balloons and Alphabet blocks is out of place in her young-adult styled room. This lamp is from her childhood and she’s still deciding if she’s young or if she’s an adult.

I start yawning at about eight at night, the same time at which I used to tuck her in with a bedtime story a few years back. This reading feels new and out of place to me. She’s reading and I’m listening. She’s reading Peter Pan and I’m enjoying it? I start feeling awkward.

Outside the bedroom that smells like daisies, my world is beckoning me. Bills, laundry, grocery lists, dishes, doctors appointments, the leaky faucet, schedules and meetings, phone calls and have to do’s are all hungering for attention.

And yet all I want is to be able to be in the story. To watch it unfold before my imaginative mind, to feel the spray of ocean water and the soft voice of a young girl as it is described. 

The first day was rough.

As she read the first three chapters, I sat, uneasily under the cozy blanket, tethering between adulthood and childhood, knowing fully well where I belong and desiring to belong where I don’t any longer. It was then that those questions popped. Just when did I grow up? Just when did I close the door to fantasy and happily ever after?  Just when did rain stop meaning puddles with paper boats? Just when did summer stop meaning endless hours of reading and playing?  Just when did care receiver become caregiver?

I don’t know! I cannot define the exact time. But I know it came earlier a lot earlier than I had hoped for.

I felt sadness for my wanting to stay in the story and my needing to bail out. In the meantime she read, this teenage child of mine, a story that she adored as a child, unaware of this raging battle within me.

“What is it that I wish for her?” I asked myself. The answer came, “to live a life with few regrets”. “How do I make that possible?” I asked back. Once again the answer came, “You model with your own life for her to see”.

Ah-ha!

Now four nights later, I sit still, no longer wandering – I’m fully present in the story of Peter Pan.