Just last night I dreamt I solved a
murder.
And I was BRILLIANT with it too. I even talked to the murderer and got information out of him with my impeccable, Academy Award winning role playing. I tricked that sucker and got all kinds of info out of him. AND, in this SAME dream, I also donated items to an older woman in need AND found a really pretty yellow bath mat for my house on sale for $11.
All in the same dream.
Then it's possible for me to wake up and shuffle to the kitchen to see a big pile of damp laundry.
Yeeeeeeeeeeeep.
Remember that feeling when you were little of wanting to be a figure skater, and a marine biologist, and a writer, and a scientist, and Nancy Drew, and Angela Lansbury where crimes you could solve fell into your lap, like every Sunday night?
Well, I still feel that way.
So much to do and so little time.
I'm pretty sure the figure skating thing might be out, but I'm still waiting for a crime to fall into my lap. One time I heard people talking over a baby monitor and got really jazzed hoping they were planning a murder, but it all ended up being rather disappointing.
Time just seems to be moving too quickly.
As my friends know, I'm an avid suspense novel hoarder, and just this summer my mom and I decided that I might not even live long enough to read all the books I've collected. Ouch.
It's no secret that my dream is to publish a book. People tell you things like, "So-and-so was rejected 113 times" and "Stephen King wallpapered a room with rejection letters" and "John Grisham ended up having to sell A Time To Kill out of the trunk of his car," well...I know these comments are supposed to make you feel better, but honestly, in your mind you are thinking, "If flipping STEPHEN KING and JOHN GRISHAM were rejected that many times, maybe I should just give another go at that figure skating gig."
And let's be real, I'm already past the point I had hoped. It would have sounded WAY cooler to be tied to the phrase "was published during Junior year of college." But I wasn't even trying to write then and was more concerned about how to stamp "I love AOPi" on the back of my boxers for the ATO pajama mixer.
Some people simply blow me away with their productivity. You know, the ones who wake up and make homemade pancakes and then play a board game with their kids after painting the bathroom and making homemade salad dressing for that night's dinner. Then they head out for errands, and it only takes them 10 minutes to leave the house because in this magical world everyone knows where their shoes are and have brushed teeth without being told.
When they get in their cars, the gas tank is full and it doesn't say they have 11 more miles until they are sucking fumes.
Then when they are home from errands, they water their vegetable garden, pressure wash the driveway, and play a second board game with their kids after correctly teaching them how to dice carrots for their fresh dinner salad, from their garden of course.
Then after dinner, everyone takes a brisk walk together, has plenty of time to read stories before bed, and all the kids are in bed and mom and dad have plenty of time to relax and unwind before bed.
Oh, and these people iron. They actually iron.
As if.
Hello de-wrinkle button for the fourth time...
(I even posted a pic of my once-spotless laundry room on Facebook so it could be documented like Haley's Comet. Fleeting and beautiful.)
Oh, and in these households, no one ever has to say, "Just slide those clean socks and folded T-shirts over a little and try not to get ketchup on them."
These are also the same ones whose kids have done DreamBox Math twenty minutes every day on the computer since school got out. Hey, I had grand plans too.
And we are half way through City of Ember, thank you very much. We still have 48 hours for crying out loud.
But back to the issue at hand. Time. There is not enough of it.
I have always wanted to experience everything I possibly could. And I want the same for my children. I want to eat pasta in Italy under the stars on a crisp night, campout with the whole family in an elaborate treehouse with little white lights and fireflies swarming around, go on a mystery cruise (and solve it of course), expose a major government coverup, act in a play as an adult, solve a murder, publish a book, show my children the whole world, open a small mystery bookstore that looks like the one in the movie You've Got Mail, write a political speech for a candidate who is actually ethical and can make a difference, take the family on a mission trip, serve in a soup kitchen, meet Tom Selleck, and have a clean laundry room.
I absolutely KNOW all of these dreams can come true.
I just have to go back to bed.
Look out Angela Lansbury.
No comments:
Post a Comment