I guess I must have been pretty tired last night because I woke up to my husband bringing me a cup of coffee and letting me know it was time to wake up for church. I got up and began to get ready. Everything was going along just fine until I began to apply my eyeliner. There I was coffee on the bathroom vanity, face pressed close to the mirror, and I had a flashback.
I remembered back to when I was growing up and mornings with a working mom. My mom’s cigarette dangled on the bathroom sink, don’t judge, it was the 70’s and everybody’s mom smoked, her coffee cup on the vanity as she put her makeup on, giving orders for us to hurry up and get dressed and singing along with the radio.
As a little girl I could not wait to grow up and get dressed for work. I could not wait to have all the makeup and perfume and clothes and shoes and big hair. Suddenly here I was. All that I wanted as a little girl before me. Wishes come true and you don’t even realize it. Life gets in the way and you think there’s more, but when you go back to the memories of that small child you used to be you find out that life was pretty simple. At least it was for me.
I was with my mom last night at a awards dinner/dance. My parents were out on the dance floor, smiling and laughing and talking. She was among her family and friends and we were having a great time together. The music was cumbia for the most part and my parents hate that. They prefer big band stuff and anything that starts with a nasally male voice singing a doo wop thing. Doug leaned over and said to me, “Do you think when we’re old they’ll play Foo Fighters at these things?” I smiled and said, “Hopefully.”
My mom’s friends from as far back as elementary school came by and said, “THIS is your daughter? I remember when you were just a girl”, reminding me that it’s been too long since I’ve come back home for events. I smiled today at myself in the mirror and replied, “Yes, I remember being a little girl. It seemed so far away to the days of eyeliner but here we are.” As a mom you know everything you do messes your kid up in some way. You live with this chronic guilt of not getting it right. You live with a consistent regret of the things you failed at. Just as my mom showed me how to draw a strong steady straight line across my eyelid, not by what she told me to do, but by what I witnessed, I learned to draw a strong steady straight line not only across my eyelid but across my life. It took some practice and some redo’s but eventually, I had it down.
Pastor Susan 