Hi Mini-Lori,
No Wonder You’re a Night Owl as an Adult
You’re in 1st grade now. What you don’t know is that your father works hard, very hard. He works for an airlines company as a sheet metal specialist. He works the graveyard shift so the planes can fly during the day. He always gets ready for work when you’ve just gone to bed. In fact, you’ll be just like your dad. You’ll love working the graveyard shift too. You’ll love working in the evening and the middle of night rather than the conventional 8:00am to 5:00 pm work hours. Perhaps it’s genetic because your mother and brother are also night owls.
One of your favorite childhood memories is when you fell asleep on the living room couch. You’re aware that your father is making coffee in the kitchen. You can sense he’s busy getting ready for work. But you’re sleeping. You start crying in because of a sad dream. You can’t remember what makes you cry, but you do remember your father rushing to you from the kitchen to wake you up. He comforts you as he tells you everything will be fine.
The Reluctant Student
During this time, after your father comes home from work, it’s his responsibility to walk you to school. One time you don’t want to go to school because you don’t like what you’re wearing. You make it hard for him to get you to school by refusing to go. You’re running late, so he gives you a small spanking (which he never does). You start crying, but eventually cave in. Dad drops you off to class. You feel embarrassed because you walk into the classroom with everyone looking at you. You’re late for school because you didn’t like what you were wearing.
Death of Your First Pet
Your second fondest memory is how your brother took care of you when the pet gerbil died. It was the summertime, both of you wake up, go to the kitchen, and see your gerbil dead on its wheel. You freak out. Mark can’t make you stop crying, so he calls Mom at work. Mother tells him to put you on the phone. You’re crying so hard that you that you almost hyperventilate.
You get off the phone. Mark takes control of the situation by telling you that both of you need to have a funeral service for the gerbil. After you get dressed, Mark takes two Dixie cups, placing the gerbil in one end, and then covering up the gerbil inside both cups. He uses Scotch tape to seal the casket.
After finding two Popsicle sticks in the kitchen drawers to make a cross for the gerbil’s casket, Mark takes you to a grassy area behind the house. Under a boardwalk on the hillside above the grass area, Mark starts digging a tiny hole for the coffin. He says some kind words about the gerbil. He asks you to say something. You start crying. Then Mark places the casket in the ground, firmly packing the dirt over it so animals won’t dig it up. All the while, Mark is sensitive to your feelings by teaching you how to deal with the death of a loved one. You’ll always remember events like this with Mark. Being six year older, Mark never resented you, even though his responsibility was to taking care of you until 4th grade.
Pop Culture from 1969-1970
On the lighter side, you live for Saturday mornings when you can watch your favorite cartoon, Scooby-Doo, Where are You? You also watch The Jetsons, The Flintstones, and Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space, while Marks watches Jonny Quest, The Herculoids, The Fantastic Four, and Space Ghost and Dino Boy. Your future isn’t that different. You still love Scooby-Doo, Where are You? so much that you travel it on your iPod. You’ll even have the DVD box set at your office, playing Scooby-Doo in the background as you work.
Action Items
- Dress for success. Actually, you do care about what you wear which is why you cause this problem for your father. You know that you care because you like coordinating your tops with bottoms and shoes.
- Don’t be stubborn. Your stubbornness will be a perennial issue for you. You must learn to not hold grudges, not dig your heels in deeper, and know when to compromise. Your stubbornness is actually a symptom of another problem. You always think you are right. You must learn that you’re not always right. You must learn that it’s okay to be wrong.
- Be comfortable with people looking at you. Fortunately, you’ll get used to people looking at you during basketball games. However, you’re too uncomfortable with others looking at you when you stand out. Channel your self-confidence learned from basketball into this area of your life. After you learn how to compartmentalize your private self from your public self, you’ll find peace with making public appearances.
- Learn patience from your brother when taking care of others. Mark was patient and kind when he took care of you. Mirror these traits in the future when you’ll have to take care of others. Don’t forget to thank Mark for teaching you basketball and tennis.
- Invest money so you can afford all versions of Scooby-Doo, Where are You? First, you’ll buy the DVDs that have only four to five Scooby-Doo, Where are You? episodes on it. After collecting nearly all these DVDs so you can have the complete two seasons, the boxed set of Scooby-Doo, Where are You? comes out, so you have to buy that. Then you’ll buy a second so you can have one boxed set at your office to play in the background as you work. You’ll buy a third copy for your second home. As if that wasn’t enough copies, you’ll download it from iTunes so you can travel with it on your iPod. Like I said, put money in U.S. Treasury Bonds or something, so you’ll have money to buy every media format of Scooby-Doo, Where are You? While you don’t have the high definition version of the boxed set yet, you will anxiously wait for its release on Blu-Ray.
