It's 12:40am, but I..

...don't want to go to bed. I want to stay here and stay awake because a little irrational voice inside my head says, "If you never go to bed, then tomorrow will never come, and you won't have to face your issues."

The last time I felt this way was nearly two years ago now. It was the night before my Grams passed away. I didn't want to go to sleep, I didn't want to go home. I knew that she would still be there on that bed, in that hospital, losing the battle for life.

I was reminded of her tonight, and saddened by the remembrance. In the movie we saw, "Gammy" gives a necklace to her future granddaughter-in-law and says, "Grandparents love to give gifts to their grandchildren because it makes them believe that they'll still be part of their lives after they've gone." My Grams, or "Grammy," as I called her growing up, gave me more gifts than I can count and she is, and will be, always a part of my life.

I wish tonight I could go to their house. I wish I could bounce in the door, blow right past them while saying hello, and open the freezer to find mini Snickers waiting for me. I wish I could play dominos and rummy and marbles with them. And be called "Carolyn Jo" in a teasing scold like I have been my entire life. I want to stop and admire the lighthouse photo I took at fourteen -- the one that I now know is overexposed, thanks to the sun peaking out behind the round white walls -- and comment on it, like I so often did. I want to walk into the office and raid their movie collection, borrow Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and promise to return it, but forget about it for weeks on end. I want to steal the cookies, the fig newtons, the banana bread that always sat on their counter. To play with the lazy susans all around the house -- the one's she painted. I want to hear her scold me for using "one" as a noun that can be pluralized. I want sprawl out on the white and pink and blue couch, the one she recovered many years before with wipeable fabric, and tell her my problems as she sits in the blue rocker and knits another blanket. Then she'll put it down and rest back in the chair, letting me know that all attention is on me. And she'll give me some sort of wisdom, some snippet of advice, some practical encouragement. And I'll find something to laugh about and out the door I'll go again.

I'm sentimental, I know. Some would probably say that it's been two years, and it's time to let go. I won't. Not if letting go means forgetting all those little things. And it was in those little things that I found love.






I suppose I should go to bed now. It's 12:54am. I don't know what tomorrow holds. We never do. It may be good, it may be bad, but it will be whether I fight the dawn or embrace it.