I Love Creatures of the Night--Just Not In My House

I was up late working on the next chapter in my book, sitting at the kitchen table and staring at my laptop. Really into it, I leaned in, typing the perfect sentence down, and reading it quietly to myself as I went along.

Something stirred from across the room.

I knew it wasn’t the dog. Cyrus had already retired for the night, snuggled up in his blanket right next to my bed. I stole a quick glance and I almost screamed!

The brave little criminal came running across the floor, straight at me!

I jumped up and ran right after it. Don’t ask me what the heck was going through my mind at the time. Surely I couldn’t have caught it and wrestled it out of the front door with my bare hands. But at that point, I don’t think reason was anywhere close to floating to the front of my brain.

The mouse dove for the cabinets, I dropped to my knees and slid right after it. It was just gone.

Gerr…

It’s not that I don’t like mice. I do. They’re cute with little button eyes and twitchy noses. I’ve had quite a few as pets growing up. But wild uninvited mice in the house? No way. I know they serve a purpose in nature, just not in my house. Lots of germs, stealing bits of food in the night and leaving their….well, you know what I mean.

So! We loaded up a couple of wood mouse traps. Nothing after two weeks!

The little criminal figured out how to steal the peanut butter right off those traps! I made another trip to the hardware store and swore, this time, these traps—well, the mouse wouldn’t get away.

So now we’re at Tuesday morning, today.

I got up like usual. My son woke up and slipped into my bed, catching a few minutes of mickey mouse while my husband and I got ready for work. I got the little one up and we were all ready to head out the door when I thought, oh crap. I forgot to check my traps.
Already a few minutes late, I checked two of the four traps. And when I got to number 3, I almost screamed again! It was there!

In that split second I felt two things: gut instinct, sadness of course. And then I did a little happy dance.

I hustled my son out of the kitchen after screaming, “we got the mouse!”

He said, “let me see mom!”

I diverted his attention and asked him to go watch the dog and I shoveled the mouse in the trash. Then I took out the trash with the mouse carefully tucked inside, and I came back into the house.


“Can I see the mouse, mom?” He asked again, because he’d been so excited about trapping the mouse. He’d even pulled out all of his stuffed animals and built a “Dinosaur mousetrap" in the kitchen, in front of the fridge, just so he could be a big helper.

In that moment I could have done a couple of things: but gut instinct told me, he’s not ready for the truth and neither am I yet. So I told him, “Sweetie, I had to let him out fast before he got away. I’m sorry. But now he’s playing with his friends. Are you ready to go play with your friends at school?”

He smiled, and lit up with excitement. “Yes mom, I can’t wait to see Nick!”

So long story short. We had an unwanted criminal lurking in the dark. We caught him. My son was a part of the mystery, until the very end. I diverted his attention with a little white lie. I feel bad about that. But I wasn’t really ready to explain. Maybe it wasn’t good not to tell him the truth, hopefully it wasn’t bad, but in the moment I had to decide if he was old enough to understand why we had to hurt the mouse in order to catch him. 

Is it selfish to want my son to go off and have a really good day? Maybe a little. But when facing two evils, I had to pick the better one in that moment.

I know someday he’ll be ready, but just not yet.

Who Doesn't Like To Forget The World?

When I hear the lyrics of this song, I smile. Because that’s exactly what our favorite people in the whole world help us do—let go of our problems and just dream for awhile.

As a kid I could daydream better than anything—out at recess, on the monkey bars, climbing on to the very top and flapping my arms pretending I could just fly away and become a bird or something. I’d go home, climb a tree and disappear among the branches, feeling the breeze tickle my face and play with my hair.

I’d stare at the clouds, watch the shapes move across the sky—thinking of a familiar animal or a letter in my favorite new word.

I’d lie in the grass at night, feeling the heat of summer press in around me and wait quietly for one glimpse of a shooting star.

Most of the time, I was always with someone I cared about a lot—and in those moments when I was alone, I was always wishing one of my friends was right there next to me.

Friends, partners, people we love help us in the best ways. They make us feel better about our mistakes and our dreams by listening and not judging. But we can't be in that spot forever. Action is required at some point if we want to move along, and quite a bit of the time, we have to do it alone.

I remember a very uncomfortable moment at one of my old jobs when I had a difficult time with my boss. We had worked so well together for several years and then in a blink—our working relationship changed. All the little things became front and center--no longer focused on the things that were going well.   A couple of months went by like that and I was frustrated. I started dreaming about other jobs—I wanted to get out. One day I took a breath and I thought, “hey, I have to try and save this relationship. I have to try to reach some sort of middle ground where they feel respect and I also feel respect.”

I didn’t want to leave my job. Also, what if I did actually leave, could I guarantee I wouldn’t be right back at the same place with someone else?

Definitely not.

Dreams have to match up with reality and granted, you define your reality. Anyway,  I was up all night thinking about how to address my boss in a nonthreatening way where he’d actually listen. At 2:00 a.m. I had it. I got up and wrote it down and finally lay back asleep.

The next morning, I went in to work. I set a time to talk and delivered my speech. I gave him time to think at each question, we finished our meeting, and I walked out of there feeling a huge weight lift right off of me. No, my boss didn’t make any promises in that moment, but after a few more hours of pondering the questions and thoughts I brought into our meeting, he came back to my desk and we made an agreement we were both happy to make.

Dreaming is awesome. I could have found another perfect job, quit mine and felt really good in the moment. But that wouldn’t have helped my dreams in the long run. Maybe yes, in the short run--but eventually my fears would have caught up with me.  So we have to roll up our sleeves and get dirty at times even when it doesn't feel easy.

So I guess, set your goals. Take action, even if it’s messier then you hoped for. After that first step, the next day will get better. Maybe a few years pass, your life changes for the best and the pain way back when doesn’t look so bad anymore—if it’s there at all.

Forgetting the world is a good thing—at least for a little while. It helps us remain in touch with our dreams and deepest desires about life. But don’t forget to wake up. Yes, it's one of the hardest things, but it is absolutely necessary.