And How Long Since You Called Your Mom?

(Note to Self)

Where is your birth certificate? The copy you ordered and received six months ago, because you couldn’t find your passport? More importantly, why don’t you KNOW where your birth certificate is? You still need it to get another passport, and time is creeping up on you. You can lay your finger on all sorts of junk – favorite poems, games, souvenirs – but when it comes to important things, what?

How do you manage to be holding something in your hand one minute and it’s lost the next, simply because you paid no attention?

When is the last time you ate a real lunch, something actually nutritious, instead of grabbing whatever was handy?

How can anybody with a heart condition become so absorbed in a marble run as to forget to take her heart medicine or brush her teeth or eat anything until the waves of nausea force her to?

Why are you still using your pizza stone for a cutting board? When your cutting board breaks, you are supposed to go out and buy another one. When your oven mitts develop holes, you are supposed to replace them. What’s with this make-do mentality? You aren’t that poor, at least not any more. Buy yourself some lingerie while you're at it; yours is disgraceful.

You have to stop start now. You can’t keep living in some fantasy world, all in your own head. You have to deal with the real world in a real way, not just pay the least possible attention when absolutely required. It requires all your attention, all your care. Come on, the real world is beautiful! Really, it is! It’s far more beautiful than your pretend one just because it’s real, for starters. It’s real, it has such rich meaning, it’s full of light and color and sound, and best of all, real, precious people. Why do you neglect your friends, fail to reply to e-mails, make yourself scarce and hard to relate to?

You have to be an adult again, tackle adult responsibilities, stay on top of things, make those appointments, get the cat to the vet, find that birth certificate (or pay for yet another one!), don’t forget to pay off your credit card until the interest builds up to more than the original charge, and do cook more than the same half dozen dinners over and over again. (Okay, so you’re out of ideas; there are zillions of recipes on the Internet.) Put away your Sudoku for a while, tear yourself away from the marbles, read your Civil War books only at bedtime, knit only while Demetrios is channel-surfing, come out of your perpetual playtime, start being fully functional, grow up! And walk away from your computer for the rest of today.