Sunday Morning, Midlife Edition

One Sunday we were middle aged and tired and boring, and it was the best of times.

On Sunday I open my eyes at 7:23 a.m. My husband is next to me, slowly waking and dozing, waking and dozing, and the dog is tiptoeing into our room from her bed in the master bathroom. She does this whenever we sleep in because she hopes she can sneak her way onto our bed, where she will roll up into a cinnamon roll spiral at our feet and snooze with us. I can hear the soft clatter of her nails as she slow-steps on the hardwood, being gentle and stealthy and patient. This sneak attack on us is the closest she will get to being a wild hunter.

Sometimes she tries this move in the middle of the night. Without opening my eyes, I will hear the click of her nails and say get in your bed! and she will slither back to her fluffed tuffet in the corner of the bathroom, hesitating first for drama. She is a poor, neglected princess, banished to the cold tile floor like a dog.

Our children never slept in bed with us, except for those nights when I was nursing a baby multiple times and would fall asleep with them next to me. I was nursing and/or pregnant for most of six years in a row, and sleep was the one precious commodity I longed for most. So when everyone was done nursing and had no good reason to be up in the middle of the night, I turned into a sleep-curmudgeon, a Scrooge of Slumber. If a child came to my side of the bed in the middle of the night they received the same command my dog now receives: get in your bed.

I’m not proud of this fact, but our kids learned to go to dad’s side of the bed if they woke in the night. So technically, our kids did sometimes sleep in our bed, but only if they chose correctly.

Scout Finch, on the bed

At 7:23 a.m. on a Sunday, I don’t say anything when I hear the dog tiptoe in. She jumps silently onto the foot of the bed and winds herself up in a tight ball; unobtrusive, silent, sneaky. Seven years ago, when she was a chicken-nugget-of-a-puppy, my husband was firmly in his no dogs will ever be in our bed era. She would cry all night in her kennel those first few weeks. I would take her out to potty several times in the dark and remember how hard babies are, and how all the work must surely somehow someday be worth it; but also how good solid sleep is. One day I found my no dogs will ever be in our bed husband, curled up in the kennel with the puppy, trying to calm and convince her of its coziness. I have a picture of this for proof. He tries so hard to be stern.¹

It’s not normal for us to be in bed at 7:23 on any morning, even a Sunday. We are the early to bed, early to rise type of middle aged folks, and “early” is 9-ish p.m. and 5-ish a.m. We get a good 8 hours in bed most nights—a number that was out of reach for so many years. That’s my first thought on this particular morning: This used to be impossible. Impossible because of children, because of responsibilities, and because my body could in no way stay in bed that “late”.

Now our kids have kids and we have this dog, waking us up at this late hour of the day.

Tim rolls out of bed first, and when I come into the kitchen he has already turned on the kettle for my coffee and started the coffee pot for his. We are nothing if not particular—I make myself an aeropress americano every morning and he grinds locally roasted, organically grown beans for his drip coffee, and we both drink it black and pure. In all fairness, he would reheat yesterday’s unfinished coffee in the microwave and be just fine with it, if there was any left in the pot. I would never.

We both used to drink burnt Folgers with Southern Butter Pecan creamer. *shudder*

It is unusual for him to start the kettle for me. On weekday mornings our youngest son leaves for work at 5 a.m. and has already made a full pot of coffee when we enter the kitchen.² I stumble in sometime after Tim and start the kettle for my americano while I pack his lunch. But this Sunday he starts the kettle for me before I’m even out of bed and I am melted at this kindness precisely because it’s so small. He knows what my routine is.

He is this way. He drives me 16 hours roundtrip and buys me the puppy my heart longs for and breaks all his own rules to love her, too. He turns on my electric blanket an hour before bedtime (aka, 8 p.m.) because he knows I’m cold. He tries to be quiet in the first hour of the morning because that is my writing time and he honors that. He brings me wildflowers from his hikes and black oak branches with acorns attached and Diet Dr. Peppers. He tells me my overalls are cute, and makes the disco comment I predicted he would make when he sees me in my new “leisure suit” for the first time.

I know him. He knows me.

After our coffee and stare time in the living room, I make six small pancakes for us and leave the rest of the batter for when the man child comes downstairs. We eat the pancakes hot, fresh off the griddle. We use the real maple syrup. We have a plain conversation with no codes. If you know, you know.

We get ourselves ready for church and slide into two empty chairs just before the service starts.

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I worry about writing what is true in the moment, because I know that it will not always be true, or at least it will not always be the truth that I am currently living. I worry about looking back—or you, dear reader, looking at my present words—and scoffing because they are so far from reality.

So this is my disclaimer: I acknowledge there are good days and bad days, horrible ones, and days that are plain and boring in the very best way. And I acknowledge that each of those days deserves to be remembered as it was, because the times keep changing.

One Sunday we were middle aged and tired and boring, and it was the best of times.

1. Do you still read my Substack, honey? Do you read footnotes? I love you ; )

2. We aren’t quite empty nesters but it feels like it. Ethan is 20 and works full time, and is gone all day on Saturdays for the Police Reserve Academy. He doesn’t need us to do much more than listen to his stories and keep eggs and milk in the fridge.