childish.

Sickness reverts you back to childhood.

Suddenly you have cups of water by your bed, you climb into pajamas as if they were your mother’s arms, bedtimes become earlier and loneliness creeps in. The need to be loved increases. Someone needs to take care of me, but I am all alone.

I call my mother with updates. Today I couldn’t stop sneezing. Tomorrow I am going to the doctor. The doctor prescribed this medicine to me. Yes, I am staying warm. No, I don’t want to eat any more soup.

Long distance love.

It sustains us. It keeps us warm, healthy and sane. Love feels so far and yet just on the other side of this bedroom wall. I feel alone wrapped in my great-grandmother’s quilt next to the stuffed animal I’ve owned since I was 4. I feel alone in my mother’s hand-me down robe. I am alone as I hang family portraits on my apartment walls.

Yet I know the love I so miss is closer than I can imagine. All it takes is one phone call and my sister is there telling me about her day at work, I can hear the concern in my best friend’s voice as she offers advice and I know my father misses me when he sends text messages demanding a phone call.

Love, love, love.

Times are tough. I am overwhelmed, stressed, sick and tired. I don’t want to climb out of bed tomorrow and into the inches of snow that will crust my boots. No, I want to stay in bed and act like I am home in Texas. Pull the sheets over my head and pretend my mother will call me for breakfast soon. But I know this is not possible. By placing that bare foot and then the next on the standard-issue carpet, I step back into adulthood, shedding the child self I become when sniffles and sickness arrive.

But that is tomorrow.
Tonight I will wrap myself in my quilt, family photos on the nightstand, and pretend that outside is my barren Texas waiting with friends and family who take care of me. In this small bedroom I will listen to songs that remind me of home, write words that take away the loneliness and dream.