My friend Heather is the life of any party. Outgoing and hilarious, Heather’s stories at our our lunch and coffee dates often result in me resting my forehead on the table for a while or spitting out my coffee I am laughing so hard.
We met in college where Heather would go the coffee shop for all of ten minutes during chapel break on Fridays and emerge with a detailed list of exactly where and when we would be going that weekend. Before cellphones, Facebook, heck, before the internet, Heather was and remains the ultimate social networking device.
Now Heather lives 45 minutes away in the summer. In the Michigan winters, the same distance can stretch to 2 hours away. But she works here. SO, last night, with forecasters predicting blizzard conditions, she took me up on the standing offer of guest room and morning latte.
One would think that a sleepover with Heather would mean a night out. Back in the day, we would have been raiding one another’s closets and hippy-fying our hair at 9:30 p.m. planning to meet friends at Cottage Bar or going to a movie at UICA. But last night, when 9:30 rolled around, Heather called her husband to say good night and to gloat over the good night of sleep she was anticipating while he was home with their two kids and I gleefully popped pain-killers for the cold I’ve been fighting (when I cough I feel like I’ve swallowed glass) and kicked back a shot of cough syrup. We then, sigh, went to bed.
This morning Heather was up with the birds as usual and halfway out the door before I even got a warm latte into her hand, but we had enough time to crow over how well we slept while Mark compared my medicine mixing skills to that of Jimi Hendrix (it will be the first and last time in my life that Jimi and my skills have ever been compared). It was about then that Heather and I looked at one another in mutual wonder–this is what it’s like to be 37? No weeknights out? Not even a movie? Just a good night’s sleep and we’re euphoric?
I know what Heather would say to that–her Blackberry in constant motion and her virtual Rolodex busting at the rings–“Hey, even the life of the party needs to sleep sometime.”
True. But at 9:30?
Apparently.
3 replies on “times change”
Heather also has lots of little people who do things for her…and my job is to read your blog and prepare her for a teary one, a funny one, a cancer update one, or a tell-it-like-it-is one, so she can plan when and where she will read it.
I’ll let her find this one on her own.
Miss you both.
xoxo
Shoot – i want to stay in your guest room sometimes – turning in at 9:30 sounds blissful indeed. then again, i woke up this morning and immediately tried to figure out when i could take a nap…
i think its happening everywhere – heidi’s daughter emma stayed up way past one on new years – while i was dreaming of bed at 10:30 . . . . .