Five Minute Friday

Linking up with Five Minute Friday today, and here's the deal-

Tell your inner critic to hush, then write for 5 minutes flat for pure unedited love of the written word. Then hop over to the party hosted by Lisa Jo Baker, and add your link to the list. Be sure and leave a comment for the writer who linked before you, because that's the neighborly thing to do.

Today's prompt-small 

Sometimes being an adult is not all it's cracked up to be. Sometimes the world beats you down in the form of mean. Sometimes a co-worker rails on you because they can. They know that you, the fair haired woman-child with the soft sweet voice, and the tender heart, and the quiet strength...they know that you can take it. They need someone to take it. You carry on. You wobble only a little.

It's the key in the ignition that does it.

Your car is dead in a cold dark February parking lot at the end of a too long day. It's the proverbial straw. That one more thing on top of too many things, and suddenly the way your grown up life rises up, and smacks you in the face makes you want to collapse into a puddle on the slushy gray pavement.

You are struck with a longing for the familiar place called home.

I hear them. The tears at the edge of your words. They reach out across the miles and phone lines. It's the catch in your throat, the pitch in your voice, that takes me back to when you were small and your hand held mine. When I could sit on the edge of your bed and be the fixer of problems, the soother of hurts, the cheerleader reminding you tomorrow is a brand new day. When my lips kissed your sweat stained forehead. When a cup of water and my off key lullaby were enough. When we told God together all the weary worries on a small child's heart, and you slept secure in the knowledge that every little thing was gonna be okay.

The calendar does not lie and more than two decades have been marked and lived and loved. We're states and miles apart, and somehow you're no longer small.

We've got this though, you and me. You talk and I listen. I talk and you listen. I find words to soothe, to remind you tomorrow is still a brand new day. You're good now, just needed a place to set down all the balls for a minute while you exhaled. You get over all the many things this day has wrought because you're a grown up now.

What about me?
I'm still a mother.

So I  sit on the edge of my bed and tell God all the weary worries on my grown up child's heart.

Like two decades ago.
Like yesterday.

And I sleep sure in the knowledge that every little thing is gonna be okay.