Winds of change

It’s about time I wrote in this diary about something other than Roger and Vickie, because life is about more than just your heartaches.

 

So, from now on, I will journal a little bit about daily life, and other things…and NOT just what I need therapy for, lol.

 

Here goes…I’m picking a story to tell.

 

A mother loves all of her children the same.

 

There may always be one or two that stay closer to the apron than the others. One or two may need more (or less) guidance and one may make better decisions than the rest, but you love them equally. It can’t be helped. It’s how we are wired as mothers. We would rather throw ourselves into the bog pit to appease the Gods than have to choose which one to sacrifice.

 

My oldest daughter is a different kind of best friend than the ones I have my own age. 

 

She is Me.

 

When we fight it is with passion.

 

The same way we love.

 

There is almost nobody I would rather be with when it comes to having fun. We vacation for three weeks every year together and a few months ago, we took my now one year old grandson to the ocean and I had one of the best times of my life. Every day felt like a gift.

 

Last summer we went to a Matchbox 20 concert and I smuggled liquor in and we drank it out of her disposable breast milk storage bags while the thumping speakers pleasurably deafened us. We danced all night and sweat our makeup off. And barely spent a dime on alcohol. 

 

We spend quiet nights together at the family cottage just reading and laughing and coloring and eating and cooking and swimming and smoking weed and just generally enjoying this beautiful life we have been given. 

 

Before you get in my shit, my daughter will be 35 in May. She is grown and I did not smoke marijuana with her until a few years ago. Not that I care how anyone else feels on the matter cuz my kid is more successful than me in life, and I’m not doing too shabby. I consider that a win.

 

I have three other daughters that I split my time between and I am NEVER happier than when I am with them all together at once. Let me just say that.

 

Today was my middle daughter’s wedding rehearsal dinner and I rode there with the oldest daughter I am referencing above.

 

On the way there, I felt the need to grab a coffee from McDonald’s.

 

I pulled up to the speaker and belted out my usual coffee order plus my daughter’s Coke, and as we rolled up to the window to pay, my daughter loudly and urgently whispers, “Tell the McWorker you’re gonna pay it backward Mom, NOT forward, and that the car behind us is paying.”

 

I protested, and she called me out as chicken.

 

She said, ” I double dog dare you.”

 

In the ten seconds it took me to get to the window, I made an impulse decision, and when it opened, I told the pimple-faced 15 year old kid (probably working his first after school job) that I was paying it backward. 

 

And I could barely contain my pride as I did it with a straight face. 

 

He looked at me quizzically, then he nervously fiddled with his touch screen computer for several seconds before finally meeting my eye again. It literally took all the strength inside of me not to bust a gut wide open while I casually asked him if he knew what “Paying it forward” meant. He was still giving me the most befuddled stare as I explained that we were doing that, only backward. 

 

He timidly asked, “Is that a thing?” 

 

That was it, I couldn’t take any more. I was just about to let him in on the joke when he held up his finger and told me, “hang on a sec while I get my manager…“ and with that, he shut the drive thru window abruptly and disappeared.

 

Now my daughter is saying, ” Mom, GO!” But I still want my coffee so I hesitate just long enough to see him coming back to the window, manager in tow. But I am sandwiched between two cars and there is no room to get out of the line.

 

I am faced (at 57 years old!) with having to admit my own stupidity to the McManager, and she looks about as happy as an Eskimo in the rainforest wearing a seal skin coat.

 

I can’t hear anything from behind the glass, but I CAN clearly see his plastic name tag and it reads “Bryce.”

 

 In tiny letters underneath it, it says “Trainee.”

 

Of COURSE it does.

 

The manager opens up the window and says “Nice try. That’s $5.11, and directly after that, she looked at me with utter disgust and said “Pull up to the next window.”

 

No ” Please”,  no “Thank you”, no ” Have a nice day.” Just “pull up to the next window” and the same look my Mother gave me in 1974, right after seven year old me dropped the awkward aluminum ladle into the giant steaming pot of broccoli soup on the Ponderosa buffet table.

 

I pulled forward, embarrassed, and it dawned on me that maybe Heaven doesn’t want a bully and that the devil loves a girl he can easily influence.

 

My dad always said that was gonna live his life out loud and push the limits, and that after it was over, he didn’t care if he went to Heaven or Hell.

 

Why? Cuz he had friends in both places.

 

Have a great Friday, Y’all.