Some thoughts about waking up....

We were putting our granddaughter Scarlet to bed. She was all tucked in and comfy when she turned to my husband and with all the wise earnestness of her two years and eight months inquired, "Papa, how will I wake up?"

Come again ?! We inherently trust that every night as we close our eyes, there will indelibly follow a morning when we open them again. Waking up is not something that you do...it is something that happens. Does anybody besides Scarlet wonder HOW ?

It got me thinking....

Do you remember Christmas mornings as a child, when you couldn't stop waking up until your parents finally say its was OK to meet Christmas? Or when you woke up in school with your face smashed on the desk and drool all over your arm?

Today....there are many mornings when I don't want to wake up; other days when I wouldn't mind waking up...I just can't.

And what about dreams?! Remember the ones where you think you're awake only to actually become awake at the worst possible moment and discover that all of the wonderful (or awful) events you were just thrilling to (or horrified by) were really just your subconscious acting out. And how the realization brings waves of disappointment (or relief)?

Or what about when you know you are dreaming and want desperately to wake up but don't?

Have you ever been suddenly jarred awake with the sound of your own snoring and your head jerking back to upright and all the people on the plane are politely NOT staring at you.

And "wake up calls". ..not just the kind hotels offer, but the kind life gives you. Like when you're driving and you thought you were awake and then narrowly miss an oncoming car and that really wakes you up?Or the relationships that you are kind of sleeping through and suddenly you are jarred awake into realizing that people really do leave? Or when being awake makes you responsible for things you'd rather not see and so you just kind of doze, thinking you're getting away with it.

What about when your eyelids are so, so heavy that you close them for just a second only to discover that you missed the entire church service, missed the movie, missed the joke, missed the boat, missed your decade or missed your chance.

And finally, what about that one inevitable moment when we don't wake up....except we do , and find ourselves in that whole other dimension. Then we ask ourselves, which one was the dream...where we came from or where we are? Are we truly awake now? Had we really been asleep our entire life?

Waking up.... what is that really all about?