Do it. Do it now.  Use your gifts. Don’t be boring.

Mamacita says:   Since my activities have been so severely limited since the wreck, which was a year ago and I’m getting pretty impatient bordering on debilitating fury, I’ve been doing things I’ve never done or thought about doing or wanted to do, two of which are becoming more and more appreciative of silence, and discovering what a genuinely boring person I am.

I am that kind of sad woman in movies and books who dedicates her life to her students and children and neglects her own and then one day she wakes up as from a trance and thinks “Well damn, that went by fast, and who is that hag in the mirror?”

How boring am I?  I don’t drink, or smoke, or do any kind of illegal recreational drugs, or drive over the posted limit, or litter, or get in the 20 items line with 21 items, or park in a handicapped spot without a hangtag. I put my cart in the corral, I don’t use any kind of outside guide or cheat sheets when I play Scrabble or Trivia, and I drive old people around town whenever they call me. I bring my mother three meals a day (plus snacks) and take her to all her appointments. I might sort of bully her into telling her doctors things she wouldn’t tell them otherwise because she hates bothering them. I’m not sure where my iron is, although I’m pretty sure I do own one, and the mop I bought just after Christmas still has the cellophane around it. (I had to buy a new one; the old one still had the same sponge it had when my kids were at home, which means something or other about my supposed housekeeping skills.) I buy more peanut butter and ketchup than most families with teens. I go through a big bottle of cheap yellow mustard every couple of months. The healthy food is for other people. (I don’t want any of it, please, don’t ask me again.)

I don’t think I could actually harm another person unless said person put a violent hand on a loved one thus releasing the Mama Grizzly, but I think spattering the guilty with permanent ink so everyone would have fair warning would not be amiss.

I love to cook and bake but I have no desire to own any kitchen machines other than the major appliances and a really old hand mixer i get out every November for Thanksgiving mashed potatoes. So you see: boring. I rest my case.

P.S. I’m working on the snark and the language, really I am, but I have also come to the conclusion that I enjoy them and am not trying all that hard to do better. One of my degrees is in English; I know lots of words and combinations thereof. Don’t cross me.

(If you know me personally, you will also already know that even my clothes and shoes are boring.) (I’m boring myself with this long drawn-out whiny post.) What happened to me? Where’s the long-haired chick with the bandannas who used to ride around on the backs of motorcycles, march in protests, wear ERA Today shirts to prayer meetings, and pay my sister to antagonize boyfriends when I got tired of them? Eh, she gone. Or is she, entirely? Even at the time, it was like a dream world, too good to last. I’ve always been kind of boring. A better question would probably be, why did it take a major wreck for me to realize the extent of my boring-ness. And maybe to decide it might be time to get a little of the old life back. . . . But wait. That would take energy. Well, pass the Diet Coke. You know, if I had a time machine, I would probably waste the opportunity. Like Dumbledore with the Time-Turners. I need to get back to work. I do not like all this leisure time. Please sign up for my classes, people.  This sort of thing just can’t be allowed to continue.  I’ve started watching TV, for crying out loud.

I know I’ll never get my life back.  The woman who disregarded her stop signs put an end to that part of me.  But something has to be done.  Oh, I have to do it myself; I know that.  Maybe with enough Diet Coke, I’ll be able to do it.

I’m still waiting for the miracle.