Ya-Ya

I'm doing the "housewife" thing today and cleaning my messy, messy place (amazing how much two determined four year olds can trash a place). That also means folding the 3/4 ton of laundry I have piled up. (I hate hate hate laundry. If I could afford to pay for a maid to do my laundry I would be in sheer heaven. One can dream.)

While I'm doing that dreaded chore, I'm watching TV. Flicking around, I found the Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood on HBO. I read the book a long time ago; it was my Christmas present for everyone that year. I've read the sequels, but that first one is really the best. I saw the movie when it first came out with one of my oldest friends on a rainy day in Birmingham.

Things have changed so much since then. When I saw it the first time, I cried for the little kids that were being beaten in one scene but then, I cried as the child. As a child who identified with the children. Today, watching it, I cried as the mother who saw her children being beaten. It's a different place, and it sucks almost as much as the one getting hit. I am grateful that I have a husband who is supportive and there-- because one of the major problems in the Ya Ya world is that there husbands were NEVER around (it was a different era, yes, but I never ever did not notice that aspect). I also have never been that sad/depressed or on the edge. Not even close. But I am very aware of how much the day of folding laundry WITHOUT kids around means, how much it costs, and how much it is a saving grace to a tired mother's sanity. Just to have a chance to watch twenty minutes of a movie I've seen before, have memories of other times and other places with close friends, and cry a little girly cry.

And to think about the way life changes, and things we never saw coming will happen, and yet, as in the movie, there is always a chance for redemption and even sunflowers.