Sticky

I was supposed to be napping, but I hadn’t yet fallen asleep. I was thirsty. I mustered up my courage to climb down the ladder from the bunk bed, open the door of my room, oh-so-quietly tiptoe down the hall to the closed door at the end, carefully push the door (which always stuck and therefore creaked) open to ask my mom for a drink. She was not pleased to see me. I was supposed to be napping. This was her time (although that little me had no idea about that). With exasperation, she told me to go back to my bed and she would bring me something.

Disappearing behind the hallway door, I quickly rushed back to the room, climbed up into the top bunk, and laid down again. A few minutes later, my mom walked in and handed me a glass of lemonade. I thought it was best for me to stay lying down, since I was supposed to be napping and broke the rules to get out of bed in the first place. I looked at the glass of lemonade and carefully placed my lips on the edge of the glass, apparently thinking I could guide the liquid into my mouth by using my lips like a funnel. Needless to say, gravity prevailed, my lips did not make a good funnel, and the sticky liquid poured down my chin and neck, on to my cheeks and the pillow beneath my head. I had created a MESS. Once again, my mom was not pleased. I can’t blame her. I’ve felt similar frustrations when my “alone time” as a mom has been stolen from me. And any time it was interrupted by something that had to be cleaned up, the aggravation was multiplied. But I didn’t know any of that as I lay in the wet, icky liquid.

That little girl was shocked. Shocked and dismayed. And so upset that I upset my mom. Plus, I made a mess. And I was sticky. And I had ruined everything. I can still vividly see in my mind the bed, the room, the ladder down to the floor, the door, the hallway, all the details. And I viscerally remember the jolting surprise when I realized my brain was not able to control the flow of the liquid. I can especially feel the wetness and then the stickiness of the lemonade all over me. I was stunned and startled and wrecked. I know it started that day — my inadequacy and my desperate trying. Because I still remember it so well. 

And whenever I am prompted in a meditation or guided exploration or therapy session to go back to the time in my childhood when I “broke,” this is the moment. I was four. And I spilled lemonade. The stickiness has stayed with me ever since. I don’t think I’ve ever been able to wash myself clean from it. I still feel sticky.