It’s quiet here at my house. After all the commotion of spending the morning with my family away from family. All the yelling, the excitement. I woke up at 2 in the morning and couldn’t sleep, laying on the couch made up for me until I realized I had forgotten to prepare the sticky buns for the morning. This recipe requires the dough to rise under a tea towel overnight. I tiptoed around the kitchen, melting butter, quietly chopping pecans, sprinkling cinnamon with the glow of the Christmas tree lights and the oven.
Sophia was so excited she couldn’t sleep either. She came running down and we both looked at each other – me with a “what in the world are you doing up” look and she with the same. Except I’m an adult and am allowed to be up at 2 in the morning for no reason at all.
“Get back to bed,” I said.
“This is when I normally get up,” she lied. “I always get up at 2.”
“You do not. Get back to bed. Or Santa’s not coming,” I lied.
And to my surprise she didn’t fight me, she ran back upstairs without question. And I finished chopping nuts and sprinkling cinnamon and placing dough in a bundt pan.
I had strange dreams about cats again and pains in my stomach. What a wonderful day yesterday. I kept looking at the blinds to remind me to treasure such moments – looking away from it all to get perspective – and then looking back to feeling like I belong somewhere.
And now today in the quiet it all feels wrong. The place I know I should be in thousands of miles away and the cat is bored and I’m left with a hickey on my body that I told my love to leave with me while he’s away for 9 days and when he returns it will be yellow and faded just in time.
You forget what it feels like to be you when you’re not at home, he said. And I know exactly what he means. I know exactly.
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