be mindful or else…
Photo by Mykyta Kravčenko on Unsplash
My nieces and nephews like to tease me when they see me do something really klutzy which, sorry to say, is rather often. They even tease me when they see someone else get klutzed exclaiming,” that was a real Aunt Laura! “
I pulled a major aunt Laura one year while visiting a sister in Florida. We were at the post office during the pandemic shipping my late mother’s belongings back to my home up north. It was an emotionally charged errand to be sure. I went inside the post office while my older sister waited in her car. I must have had 12 or 13 big boxes to ship and of course, so did the rest of my mom’s city. I waited in a line wondering if I’d be infected with the corona virus every time someone so much as looked in my direction. I got to the clerk and discovered I had to touch a public screen to answer questions which left me thinking, certainly now I’d be infected touching this shared screen. Admittedly, I was quite the germophobe before COVID so I doubled down at its height. There was no hand sanitizer on the counter so after I paid and was walking out, I had my face in my handbag trying to find my sanitizer.
I was digging and digging and trying not let my infected screen finger touch anything else when I got in the car. I threw my purse down on the floor of the passenger seat and continued to dig, all the while cursing the post office out aloud for not supplying sanitizer. I’m grumbling and swearing and listening to horns honk and my sister saying “hey!” over and over. I dug some more, came up with my sanitizer and then looked up to find that it was not my sister saying “hey!” It was some stranger and I was in her red car NOT my sister’s. I looked behind this ever so patient stranger to see my sister parked right next to her, laughing hysterically and honking her horn at me.
A total and complete “Aunt Laura.”
There is a moral to this story.
First, everyone has a story. And second, this turned out to be a very laughable moment (thank goodness) but there was a lesson there. I cannot let my anxiety hijack my nervous system. Grief, pandemic, crowded post office or not, my note to self is to do the self-care now for when I need it later. I need to be more mindful.
I can laugh about it, and my nieces and nephews have a wonderfully funny story to tell. I’m glad it turned out to be a harmless situation. I still have never gotten COVID, and I hope I’ve learned my lesson.
My book, The Story of Your Quilt is still available here. If you have a story to tell about a quilt, it will provide you with motivational quotes and inspirational prompts to document your journey. If you want to tell me your quilt story, you can write me in the comments section. If you, too are an Aunt Laura, you can tell me all about that as well. Let’s start a conversation!