Being Brave

One of the ‘issues/gifts’ My Girl was born with was the inability to sleep.  You could say she was nocturnal.  From the first night she could crawl out of her crib, it wasn’t fun.  When she was small keeping her safe each night and getting her to sleep were an ongoing challenge.  When she started school the issues increased.  It still took her hours to fall asleep, so getting her ‘up’ each morning was an additional challenge, because of course she was still tired.  Did I mention that this was not fun?  Not for her or me…as she got older, I’d often say, ‘someday’ you’ll have a job that works for your clock’

….and now she does, working the graveyard shift at a classy resort in the next town.  She goes to work when we go to bed and visa-versa.  As you can imagine, this is a hard job for the resort to fill, most of us can not stay up all night, even if we wanted to.  Imagine staying up all night doing audits AND being nice to people…I don’t think so.  Not only can she do it, but she is doing a great job, so when the resort needed a Night Auditor to go to a sister resort for a couple of weeks and stay there, she said she’d do it….a ‘business trip’…living in the resort….working…in a different town…where she knows no one…exciting, challenging and lonely…and wanting to share a bit of the adventure with someone.

Each of us had the desire to go…but the timing was more than just tricky…

My Loving Spouse – still recovering from his total knee

Number Two Son – had agreed to help out at Vacation Bible School, but could handle the nursing duties at home

The Number Ones – were waiting as we all are on the birth of THE Grand-baby, who we’d all convinced ourselves would be like his mother and born early, but now clearly is following in his Daddy’s footsteps and is officially late

Me – wanting to see My Girl and play with her, a tad worried THE Grand-baby would come, grateful that I could leave the nursing to Number Two

So…off I went across the state to see My Girl.

Zip lining through the trees in the Colombia River Gorge was a 2 hour adventure.  She went like a pro.  I went like a 55-year-old mom, no fancy dangling for me, but plenty of whooping and happy hollering until we got to that one.  The one where you were suppose to just step off the platform and go down, straight down…and I was last.  What can I tell you, it wasn’t pretty.  I probably could have jumped off, but that was not allowed.  Stepping into nothing?  I’ve been trying to avoid that all my life.  In the end, I sat down on the platform and sort of scooted off and lived to tell the tale.

We hiked walked a river trail to see the remains of an old fort, meandering along one step ahead of the mosquitoes until we reached that proverbial fork cross in the path. Where it took us some time and attention to the details to find our way…She’s finally turned sleeping days and not nights to her advantage and is being brave with her life… seeing the beauty of where she is and what she is experiencing, acknowledging the loneliness, learning to navigate that reality and not let it overshadow all the good…that I think is being brave and I am proud of her.