Remember?

Remember when you lived with your mom and dad and they payed your bills and cut your steak and cooked your dinner and got your baked potato mushed up just right?

Remember when you woke up in the morning and had your clothes all set out for you and you put them on taking your time. Then you got your toast all buttered up and warm, wrapped in a paper towel and walked to the end of the road to wait for the bus?

Remember how when you got home you had a snack waiting and wrote a story, 1/2 a page long, using at least 6 of that week's spelling words? Words like worth, right, speak... Then went outside to see if the neighbors wanted to come over and be in a play you were putting on for your parents?

Remember how the WORST part of the week was when you had to clean your room? I bet you do... I bet some people, less... but some, remember how while you cleaned your room Mom and Dad were cleaning the kitchen, living room, den, hallways, office, their room, bathrooms... It never occured to you when you were trying to shove all your art supplies in the back of the closet that one day, not to far off... You'd be the one having to clean the whole house.

The whole house... that YOU are now paying for. With money from a non-existent job. Cleaning the house with the time you have left over after you've gone to school and run your errands, and God forbid, slept.

Remember when you were being tucked in and Mom kissed you on the forehead and you rolled yourself up perfectly cozy... and while she was closing the door behind her you said "Turn the hall light on! Leave a crack in the door!" And she would smile and position the door just so and flip the switch?

Who knew that behind that smile a stream of calculations broke out speedily counting the hours of the night, the watts used, and the money she'll spend at the end of the month to keep the monsters at bay?

Remember when you were in high school and you knew what it was all about. When you had a job... but the money was yours, and you ruled the world!? Remember how you went to Sonic everyday for lunch with your best friend and all you had to save for was prom tickets and gas money?

Remember gas money? When you spent less than half your pay check to fill your tank?

Remember when everyone warned you that you needed to start saving, that those tiny car payments and taxes were going to blow up in your face soon?! Remember that?...

Me either. I think we blocked it out.





Remember when you had to give up things you loved and that made you feel happy and fulfilled to have time to get a job just to survive... and then nobody would even call you back after you applied? Remember panic?

Remember your parents giving you a deadline to be out of their house, and you didn't have the means? Remember having to give up hot water and a/c in the middle of a South Georgia summer to just barely squeeze by with only one meal a day provided by your fast food employer? Honestly, I don't... but a couple of my friends remember that. Don't you?

Remember dreaming? Remember when everyone told you that you could do anything you wanted when you grew up? And you danced around your room in your moms makeup and skirt... or operated on dolls with serious injuries, or put out sidewalk chalk fires with a garden hose? Remember when it was finally time to start putting those dreams to work but bills were due... so you'll have to put it off... again?




Remember how happy you were? How finding a rock that even barely resembled an arrow head was the greatest treasure of all? How getting to help mom make dinner was like winning the lottery? How Winnie the Pooh knew right where to find your funny bone? Remember how being the belle of the ball was as simple as making a homemade dandelion bracelet?


Me too.


Remembering is so easy... its going back in time that's giving me a run for my money.
(money?)