Andrew's snooze button

My husband's alarms blares into my dreams at 5:30 a.m.
He doesn't hear it.  I do.
He spends 1.5 hours hitting snooze.
"Waking up is a process, not an event," he tells me.  It is one of his favorite tag lines.

The kids are at a sleepover with Grandma.  This is a rare morning to myself.
So I pull myself out of bed and flip on the coffee pot.
I brush my hair, check for zits that have grown over night, find one, squeeze it.
I check Facebook to see if there are any new pics from the wedding we attended last night.
Nope.

I let the cat in...let the cat out.
I decide to go for a run, then to a meeting, then to Bootcamp in the park.
I also want to write.
I want to tell the truth.  But I'm not supposed to tell you about the falling out with my friend.
I'm not supposed to publish other people's lives in this blog.
I am supposed to wear my pretty dress to the party and smile and say, "It's great to see you."
I'm supposed to flit from friend to friend like a butterfly.
But I'd much rather just sit, and speak with one person, for about an hour.
Just as I'd rather wake up and skip all the nonsense I do, and just be honest.
This friend, whom I am not supposed to write about, has lived life with me, the big and the small.  Our hours together are close to 1,000.  She has straightened my hair before parties, then we'd switch and I'd straighten hers. Last night I had to straighten my own hair.  I stood in front of the mirror by myself, looking into my own eyes.  I saw the sadness of love and of knowing.

I was with her for the birth of her baby.  I was there from the moment her test said positive.  I made her sandwiches.  I went to her doctor appointments.  I threw her baby shower.  We made onesies with delicate fingers.  We pressed our foreheads together when she got her epidural, when it was too much and she was crying for help.  We breathed and clenched our hands in a promise.  I sat with her baby in the nursery when she couldn't.  I wore the bracelet.  I wore the Dad bracelet.

After I finished straightening my own hair, I went looking for my husband's bare chest.  I found him in the other bathroom combing his hair.  I buried my nose between his shoulder blades.  My red eyes peered up over the edge of his body into the mirror.
"Are you sad?"  he asked.
To which I nodded.  He didn't try to tell me anything.  He didn't try to explain the facts.
"I feel like my heart is in my stomach and it's being digested," I said.
This made him smile, and I got another hug.

She, my friend, does not have this person.  She must eat her sadness alone.
So today I am trying to remember, before I get too busy, and my brain starts explaining the facts.