12 Years Old

Who knew that, on my last birthday, instead of turning 25, I turned 12 instead? I just realized this last night when I fell asleep at 10 pm. Oh glorious sleep. I got ready for bed during the commercial breaks of Law & Order SVU (don't judge-- Luke Perry was on... Seriously. Stop judging.) and turned in immediately after Elliot and Olivia cracked the case. Great news for me, not so good news for B.

One of my great and wonderful talents is being able to fall directly into a pretty hard sleep. When B and I were living on opposite coasts during his baseball days, it was (pun intended) a nightmare. We'd talk before his games (around 5pm, my time) and he'd promise to call when the game was over. I'd wake up the next morning and immediately sour when I realized he hadn't called. I'd call and wake him up (at 6am his time after a 1am bedtime) and berate him for not calling. Lovingly, patiently he'd tell me to hang up, check my call log, and call him back.

I would grumble while I looked, only to find that there were 5 minutes and 46 seconds of my life unaccounted for. He had called and we had talked... for a while, actually, and I'd have no memory of it.

This went on for months. He swears I never said anything crazy, but I'm sure he could've gotten every last secret out of me in those phone calls. I guess that doesn't matter now--whatever he found out must not have been too terrible!

I thought that when B hung up his cleats, I could quit worrying about what strange things came out of my inner child during our middle-of-the-night conversations. After all, he's on the east coast now, an hour ahead, so certainly I could keep up.

Until last night. B's playing major catch-up after three weeks of interviewing and traveling around the southeast, so I told him to call when he went to sleep, which happened to be 20 minutes after I'd gone to sleep. I woke up this morning, but instead of feeling pissy and grumpy, I just checked my call log and there it was, 24 seconds with the love of my life that I'm clueless about.

When he called to say hi before class, I told him good morning and goodnight, then asked him what we'd talked about last night. "Not much," he said. "You answered and said, 'Hi. I'm tired.' and so I told you goodnight and we both went to sleep."

For some reason, it makes me love him more that he finds my inner child (that whiny voice that comes out in middle-of-the-night phone calls) endearing, and is actually quite kind to her, er, me. Can't put it into words, but it's there.

So B, if you ever call and get a not-so-sweet A, just come back and read this and know how much I love those phone calls, even if I mostly mumble and whine. Love you.