Winter

If you’ve been there before, you know what it feels like to be there again.  You can retrace the moments that lead up to this point; this thought, those words, that night.... you talked yourself into, then out of, what that tiny voice was telling you….

You are not happy

….are you?

I think some days, most people wake up unhappy. And I think some people wake up unhappy most days.  And Some days I find myself wondering which one of those people I might be. 

Maybe it’s just winter. I just stand there, freezing in my towel and soaking the carpet beneath my pink toes. I stare out the window frantically searching for one small sliver of glittery sunlight…one tiny ray of warmth. Maybe it’s just winter. Before I know it the dark will rise, the clouds will part and the sun will come barreling out of the sky and land right on top of my wet, tangled head and then, there will be happiness.

 I sprint back into my bedroom, throw myself into bed and rip the covers over my head. Above the noise of my chattering teeth I hear my head tell my body that were just cold and its just winter. 

10 minutes later my phone vibrates off the edge of my dresser and onto the floor. Unfortunately for me, and fortunately for the sake of my job, I am incapable of sleeping through my alarm.  Charlotte wakes up to the sound of me dropping my hair dryer and curling iron on the bathroom floor. She wants a red clip in her hair and her silver sequin boots. “Mommy you have silver boots too, but they don’t have sparkles….” She is standing on top of the toilet, sabotaging my overpriced lip gloss and telling her new stuffed animal, Eric, that she won’t be taking him to daycare today because he was naughty yesterday. I almost forget as were piling into my new car, that today my first payment is due, that I can’t pick her up from daycare because I’m training an employee tonight and that I forgot my wallet in my bedroom on that pile of clothes in my closet (as usual). 

When I drop her off at daycare I take a left instead of a right, I set my cruise instead of hit the gas, I turn up the radio instead of get out my cell phone, and I think that might have been the morning of that night I mentioned earlier.