20 Minutes of Insanity: Day Seven

Dragon In The Dark

The first day of any new challenge is hard. The second day is harder. I really wanted to not go walking yesterday. The inner, petulant Barb kept muttering as I was lacing up my shoes, saying things like, "Fuck this! Why aren't there any doritos in this house?!" I made her walk anyway. The cool thing about walking outside as opposed to on a treadmill, is that once you're out and moving, it's very difficult to quit. I mean... ya gotta get home somehow, right? So, I did my half hour. Then to punish that inner whiny bitch, I walked up and down the steps at home 10 times.

As I was walking toward the school parking lot, I watched a mother teaching her son how to ride a bike. First she hung on to the back of the seat and ran with him. Then she let go. As he kept pedalling and staying upright, she said, "You're doing it!" He grinned and said, "I'm doing....*crash!*

He jumped up and said, "I'm okay." Then with a little more conviction and excitement, "Hey! I'm okay!!" And so the lad learned that wonderful truth that falling down is not a death sentence. Unless you stay there. He got back on the bike and with his mom's help, got rolling again. She let go. This time she didn't say anything, but stood where she was as he wheeled away. He got to the end of the parking lot and came to a wobbly stop. He looked around, surprised that his mother wasn't standing near by, then spotted her standing near the other end of the lot. "Mom!" he hollered. "Mom! I did it!"

As I walked near them (cut through the lot, then up the trail that runs along the field and our place), I grinned at the kid and said, "Well done!" He beamed. It's not often you see people beam any more. What ever happened to beaming?

*clackityclackityclackity* I need to trim my fingernails. Twenty minutes of clackity is not good for my mental health. Neither is my internal editor screaming at me to use spell check when she knows full well that it isn't a part of this exercise. She's also hating that she's not allowed to use the dictionary or thesaurus. For the first time in two years I'm looking forward to Friday.

Last night he caught me up in his arms as I came out of the bathroom from brushing my teeth before bed. He held me, sniffed my hair and said, "Mmmm. Flower Girl." And then, still holding me, "I'm spoiled. You take good care of me." I tried to laugh it off, "All I do is laundry and dishes..." He said again, "You take good care of me." I hope so.

I really am terrible about taking a compliment. I bug everyone else about being gracious, but that's because I recognize my own failure in their "aw shucks" dirt scuffing approach to receiving praise. But I'm the worst of the bunch.

*clackityclackityclackity* Agh! Clear evidence that I haven't been playing the piano lately either. The longer fingernails, that is.

But I was about to say...

*ding ding ding* ... time's up... and... "publish post"