Unwild Rumpus

If I wake up when the first rays of the sun sneak in through the blinds and kiss me lightly on my eyelids, then I am most definitely still dreaming. If I wake up in my own bed, snuggled next to P, to the "opening" sound of the iphone alarm (snoozed thrice), then I'd call it a great morning. Because, I am a mom. Most mornings my alarm sound finds me wedged uncomfortably between two kid beds, with feet on my face. Otherwise, it finds me waking up on the couch, neck twisted awkwardly on the armrest, book open in one hand, half cup of yuck cold tea, luckily on the side table and not all over me and the couch. A pose indicating the sheer exhaustion that overtook me when I was hoping to squeeze in some tranquil reading time after the storms settled. And yet, these are my better mornings. The bad to worse ones include waking up to a wailing three year old, Kid #1 screaming that Kid #2 sneaked in to her bed at night and then peed on it, or the sound of ceramic crashing and shat...

I sometimes think I live my life constantly testing the borders of what's considered acceptable and what's not. Having spent all my formative years in a Catholic convent, I became more than just a little familiar with a lot of their practices. And the one that frazzled me the most? Confessions. Not because I had things to hide, but rather because I had nothing. I remember standing in line to confess, working up a sweat, because I didn't have anything to confess and somehow, that seemed like a bigger sin than others. The tension was real. So real that soon my life revolved around collecting little sins so I could add them to my confession arsenal. Ones that were safe enough to not get me into trouble but still significant enough to "confess": sneaking in a piece of chocolate during mass, reading a Mills and Boon under the desk during class, reading under the quilt with a flashlight after lights were turned off in the dorms.. Somewhere in the next twenty years, ...