Chalk it up to a mid-life crisis...

Yesterday, I practiced the Art of Doing Nothing. I left the house twice, both times to venture to the mailbox. Once, to drop off a Netflix, once, to pick one up. I wore my pajamas ALL DAY LONG. It was fabulous. I caught up on photo editing. I watched movies. I did laundry and cleaned and organized. I thought. I felt. I cried a little. Not because I was sad. The movie was. Come to think of it, it was the movie that got me started. "Everybody's Fine" stars Robert de Niro, Drew Barrymore, Kate Beckinsale + others and is about a man who travels around, trying to get closer to his grown children after his wife dies. He realizes that his wife was the one that his children always confided in, and that he really doesn't know them all that well. And his kids reaction to their father made me really upset. And sad. And it made me miss my parents all the more.

I love my adult life. I am married to my best friend. I use the right and left sides of my brain on a daily basis. I have good health, a nice home, a working car, a handful of loyal and reliable friends, a paycheck that comes twice a month without question. My sister is my best friend and we talk every day. A grandfather whom I treasure my time with. An aunt who I can confide my deepest and sometimes scariest feelings with.

But.

I miss my mama. And my daddy. But more than anything, sometimes I really just miss being a child. I miss crawling up on my mama's lap when I was sad or upset or my feelings were hurt or knees were scuffed and she could always just make everything better. Always. Without fail. She made the universe spin again. I miss the simplicity of that, I suppose.

I remember adolescence and how horrible it was. How inexplicably spiteful I was to her. And how, late at night, I would lay in my bed, and all I'd want was to run down the hall and cry and tell her that I was sorry and to not stop loving me. To curl up on her lap and have her tell me that everything was going to be alright. And knowing it would be. But I never made the trip down that hallway, and it wasn't until I had the first month of college under my belt that I called her crying and apologized for all the hateful things I had said or thought.

And she's still really good about talking me off the ledge. Except last night she was out on the town, so Aunt Jane had to fill in. And she just gets it, too. When I told her about these feelings, she admitted to having the same. She said, "I think it's great to feel that way, actually, because it means that you had a happy childhood. Can you imagine if you DIDN'T have these thoughts?!" I seriously don't want to think about that. I am so very thankful that I have two parents who always come to my rescue.