Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 122097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
That’s what last night was about.
I don’t make a habit of getting drunk. In fact, I do it exactly once a year. So this headache of mine, though annoying, isn’t familiar enough to be distressing.
Besides, this bed is warm, and the covers feel good, so I let out a small sigh, enjoying the little bit of time I have left here in the in-between, before life starts back up again.
In the same moment that my sigh is leaving my body, there’s another sigh behind me.
My eyelids fly open and all the little crusties that should’ve been massaged slowly with gentle fingertips just split apart without a bit of fanfare.
The first thing I see is the sexy face of young Jim Morrison in black and white staring out at me with a rock-god expression like he’s about to take over the world. And while I study that sexy face a very heavy, very strong arm glides over my waist and pulls me close.
Oh, no.
Oh, no, sir, this is not happening. I did not bring the one-night stand home with me last night. I did not! Immediately my mind is racing, trying to put all the pieces of what happened back into some kind of coherent order.
Woke up, went to work, blah, blah, blah. Bryn and I had lunch and, of course, she tried to talk me out of what came next—which was my annual ‘get drunk day,’ in honor of our mama, of course.
See, our mama died when I was nineteen and Bryn was seventeen and yesterday was Mama’s birthday. Some people remember lost loved ones on ‘the day,’ as in the death day. But not me. That day can go to hell. That day sucked.
But Mama’s birthday was always a happy time for us. It was a day when Bryn and I would take care of her instead of her taking care of us. And she would let us do that. She would let us make her meals that day, and do her laundry, and pick out her clothes, and bake her a cake.
If it was a school day, we got the day off because we would go into work for Mama. She ran the flea market right on the edge of town, just this side of Disciple. She would go in with us, of course, but Bryn and I took over that day and we greeted and cared for the customers who wandered in from outside places.
I was always someone else on those birthdays. Louder than my normal self. Carefree like a butterfly on a summer day. And spontaneous, like anticipation was my motor and I was just lookin’ for a reason to press my foot on the gas.
And it was all that much more special because in my everyday life I am nothing like that at all. I’m quiet, and careful, and deliberate.
Now that she’s gone, this is how I honor her. Not the one-night-stand thing, though that is part of my be-more-spontaneous plan. It’s not the purpose of the letting go, just the end result. And if I’m being honest, if I didn’t give myself permission to let go once a year, I might be in a dry spell something terrible as far as sex goes.
No, I honor her by being the girl I was on her birthdays. Because Mama noticed how different I was this one day a year. How much I laughed and smiled on those birthdays of hers. How I let go of the burden I felt to be good.
On this one day every year I am Lowyn the Laughing. Lowyn the Lighthearted. Lowyn the Lover. In other words, I’m not Lowyn the Lonely, or Lowyn the Laborious, or Lowyn the Leftover.
Which is a harsh way to characterize myself, I do realize this, but why fight it? It’s sorta true. Because the other three -hundred and sixty-four days of the year I am a responsible business owner. I am goal- oriented. I am diligent, and hardworking, and nonconfrontational. I am in control one -hundred percent of the time.
Control works for me. Schedules work for me. Ten-year plans, exceeding expectations, and organized growth all work for me. I thrive in this environment.
And I don’t always throw so much caution to the wind on Mama’s birthday. Some years, if I have a steady boyfriend, I don’t have a one-night stand at all.
But if I’m being honest with myself—and what’s the point of having a rolling internal monologue if you’re not gonna be honest?—I have noticed over the years that I tend to break things off about a month prior to the Day.
Not that I want a one-night stand. Not particularly. It’s just… what is the point of pointless dating? I mean, a girl knows if he’s ‘the one.’ You just know. And I would not want to skip my one day of giving Mama the version of me she liked best for some random nobody who barely passed the Valentine’s Day test and is never gonna make it to Christmas.