ten seconds of love

One hug. One last cuddle at day care before leaving Duckie to their tender mercies. Ten seconds of love, maybe. Stretches out to ten seconds that you don’t have, when another ten seconds could be spent waiting at the longest stoplight in the world, watching your co-worker speed past you (didn’t I just see her at the day care? Wait a sec, I left before her – how did she get here first), then hollering at the light to change, damn it, change!!! Knowing that despite leaving the house early this morning, despite having everything together (for once), despite feeling comfortable and not rushed (or more probably because of not rushing), I’m going to be late. Again.

My God, but I hate this freaking time clock. I have hated it since I started working here. The moment I wake up in the morning I hear it in the back of my head, counting down seconds until the first deadline of the day – every week day. No stress, no pressure, right? How hard can it be to get to work on time every day, anyway? Factor in that extra hug; factor in the slow-ass Jeep that refuses to budge when you step on the gas, no matter how politely you ask for more acceleration. Factor in the idiots on the road. Factor in all of that, every day, and leave the house at ten after 7 instead of 7:15. Even better, leave the house at 7, if that’s what it takes. Then I might have a chance of not being fired for constant late-ins.

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We had a good evening last night. The crock-pot chicken wasn’t the best, it was kind of – well, icky is the word that best describes it. The texture was funny – I had slow-cooked chicken legs, all dark meat, for about 12 hours, and I had no idea it would have that effect. Will try breasts next time. The gravy was fantastic, anyway. Not exactly a low-fat meal, but Duckie and Husband both liked it.

Duckie remembered how to splash in the tub last night and we splashed and laughed for a good ten minutes. This was a good tub night – when she doesn’t want to get out, it’s a good tub night.

Husband very sweetly stopped by the grocery store and picked up some Alka-Seltzer cold medicine for me, which really helped the aches and pains but didn’t help the congestion much. We got caught up on scheduling, talked about the possibilities of counseling, made some day-to-day decisions. We had a good night, despite my general malaise.

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My boss (the one who will have to write me up for being late) just came in. We have been friends for a while, which makes being under her a little weird sometimes, but it seems to be working so far. On Monday I found myself in her office with the door closed, blubbering about fear and uncertainty (remember that was the drivin’ & cryin’ day, too.) PMS is so much fun.

She came in a few minutes ago and said, “I meant to do this yesterday but work just crowded in and I didn’t get a chance. So I wanted to be sure to do it today.”

I thought, oh shit, here it comes. Where’s the form they usually use? “Written Warning”, I think it’s called, and I ought to know, I typed it up. Doesn’t this usually happen in the HR Manager’s office? Why is she doing it here?

She had a funny look on her face as she continued. “You can do whatever it is you want to do with this, and I hope you’re not offended, but at church on Monday we had our prayer meeting, and we blessed these, and here’s yours, and you can do whatever you want with it. I just wanted you to know that…”

Well, after that, she hugged me and I hugged her back and I started crying again and I don’t really remember exactly what she said. She gave me a little silver cross inscribed with “God Loves You” and said we were welcome anytime, all of us, me and Husband and the baby, and that she wanted me to know that she was praying for us in the hard times and hoping we could manage to pull through together.

It’s funny – Husband recently wrote about this very thing – that having people say “I’m praying for you” is annoying because, as he put it, “It comes across as: ‘You are so f$%^ed up in life that only God can help you now.’” At the time I thought the comment was hilarious.

But really, in my circle of friends, I don’t get that a lot. We get strength from each other, and we don’t mind asking for and giving prayers, but it doesn’t happen very often. So to be on someone’s prayer list doesn’t bother me in the slightest. I can use all the help I can get. And if you think about it, maybe it’s not entirely coincidental that M. sent us those good wishes on Monday, and we had a good night yesterday. Maybe it’s time to start praying, myself.

As for being so messed up that only God can help, well, I think that’s true of everyone. And I’ve always believed that God, in whatever form you want to visualize or name you want to assign, works through all of us, every day, and through other forces and circumstances that we can’t even conceive of or imagine. So when my friends rally around and support me, when someone I haven’t seen in weeks says, “Wow, you’ve lost some weight!”, when fate or whatever you want to call it conspires to throw me (several times) in the path of the man who is still my soul-mate, no matter how much we've screwed up our relationship… well, you can call it whatever you like. I still think it’s God.

The question remains (as always), if it's God doing the good stuff, is it God doing the crappy stuff, too (Asian tsunami, 9/11, friend's baby moving out of state, cancer in the family, among other things)? Because I have a hard time believing in the Devil. Evil, yes, I definitely see that. But where do you draw the line philosophically between mindless evil and deliberate evil, and how does God work in that context?

WHOA NELLIE. Where did this babblement come from? Good time to get to work, I think.

If you have any thoughts on these subject, feel free, as always, to chime in.




Call on God, but row away from the rocks.
Indian Proverb