EDIT: I forgot to add a link! This is my Blogging 4 Books entry. If you hurry, you can put one up too. Go HERE and read all albout it.
Those times – not night, not day – the between times, when secrets reveal themselves in the shadowy corners and recesses… they call to me. But though I’ve often wondered about the old adage of how standing between times and between places will reveal the ‘tween world and its creatures, I’ve never tried it.
I was the girl who ran screeching from the bathroom, pig tails flapping in my wake, when the other girls began chanting “Bloody Mary” at the mirror in the middle of the night – curious enough to go along for the ride but a little too chicken to see the gory results (or lack thereof). Ouija boards? Bought one. I tried it once and then decided sleep was overrated for the next week. Still, I wonder what fantasies lay hidden between.
In reality, I’m the one 'between' for I am The Mediator.
I’m not sure how or when I became The Mediator. I grew up wearing the colors of The Instigator and merrily made my way though life, instigating situations. Indeed, I enjoyed my instigation antics so gleefully I should have been fined. And perhaps therein lies the reason I woke one day to find myself swathed in the tight spandex super suit of mediation.
Karma. The moment you relax and turn your back it’ll bite you in the hind parts like a Chihuahua with a Rottweiler complex.
My Instigator cape thrown to the wayside, I now parade about in a shiny new one and announce myself in a great booming voice, “The Mediator to the rescue!” I stand between Authority and Rising Independence on a daily basis to make sure atomic explosions of adult male pride and teenage rebellion do not rain down upon our house and its occupants. I use my great therapeutic-psychologist-should-have-been super powers to mold and coax what could be volatile conversations into something resembling actual mature communication.
When the angry goose-honking sounds of Spawnling McBickerfests reach my ears, I use my faster-than-a-flying-Lego super speed to leap between the mini pugilists. If my window-shaking rendition of, “ENOUGH!” doesn’t send them back to their respective corners, the Brotherly Love Hugging Fest commences, with them bound by silly string until their mutual adoration sparkles in the air around them.
I receive phone calls from my Dad, asking me to call my sisters – to tell them to please call him so he can talk to them. Mom? Just as guilty – “Have you seen your baby sister? Why don’t you call her and tell her she needs to call me.” I let the girls know The Mediator is on the clock – my time is their money, paid to me in favors owed unless they learn how to call their parents on their own. All three of them are in arrears. And, even with payments owed, they employ The Mediator’s skills to filter their comments and issues down the pipeline to the parents and, on occasion, to each other.
Friends, co-workers, and sometimes people I’ve only just met – they all see through my street clothes and feed upon my mediation skills like sharks in a blood frenzy. With a flash of cape and a flicker of colorful tights the go-between goes between, making everything in the world right again. My Mediator motto, though… Where’s The Fruitbat?!
Upon donning my tummy-tucking suit of mediation, I unwittingly must have accepted the mantle of Official Go-Between for everyone. Was there a worldwide rights contract I didn’t know about? Did I sign it in my sleep? If so, I’m thinking my newly flat stomach royalties gained aren’t up to the percentage snuff of the services I provide.
At the end of the day, when I’m exhausted by the struggle of removing my mediation girdle, I sometimes stare at the doorways in our house, study the clock showing midnight on its glow-in-the-dark face, and wonder…
I threw a penny at a ‘tween place once, during the ‘tween time. It disappeared.
No. As much as the urge might tempt me, I enjoy it all too damn much to stop.
Those times – not night, not day – the between times, when secrets reveal themselves in the shadowy corners and recesses… they call to me. But though I’ve often wondered about the old adage of how standing between times and between places will reveal the ‘tween world and its creatures, I’ve never tried it.
I was the girl who ran screeching from the bathroom, pig tails flapping in my wake, when the other girls began chanting “Bloody Mary” at the mirror in the middle of the night – curious enough to go along for the ride but a little too chicken to see the gory results (or lack thereof). Ouija boards? Bought one. I tried it once and then decided sleep was overrated for the next week. Still, I wonder what fantasies lay hidden between.
In reality, I’m the one 'between' for I am The Mediator.
I’m not sure how or when I became The Mediator. I grew up wearing the colors of The Instigator and merrily made my way though life, instigating situations. Indeed, I enjoyed my instigation antics so gleefully I should have been fined. And perhaps therein lies the reason I woke one day to find myself swathed in the tight spandex super suit of mediation.
Karma. The moment you relax and turn your back it’ll bite you in the hind parts like a Chihuahua with a Rottweiler complex.
My Instigator cape thrown to the wayside, I now parade about in a shiny new one and announce myself in a great booming voice, “The Mediator to the rescue!” I stand between Authority and Rising Independence on a daily basis to make sure atomic explosions of adult male pride and teenage rebellion do not rain down upon our house and its occupants. I use my great therapeutic-psychologist-should-have-been super powers to mold and coax what could be volatile conversations into something resembling actual mature communication.
When the angry goose-honking sounds of Spawnling McBickerfests reach my ears, I use my faster-than-a-flying-Lego super speed to leap between the mini pugilists. If my window-shaking rendition of, “ENOUGH!” doesn’t send them back to their respective corners, the Brotherly Love Hugging Fest commences, with them bound by silly string until their mutual adoration sparkles in the air around them.
I receive phone calls from my Dad, asking me to call my sisters – to tell them to please call him so he can talk to them. Mom? Just as guilty – “Have you seen your baby sister? Why don’t you call her and tell her she needs to call me.” I let the girls know The Mediator is on the clock – my time is their money, paid to me in favors owed unless they learn how to call their parents on their own. All three of them are in arrears. And, even with payments owed, they employ The Mediator’s skills to filter their comments and issues down the pipeline to the parents and, on occasion, to each other.
Friends, co-workers, and sometimes people I’ve only just met – they all see through my street clothes and feed upon my mediation skills like sharks in a blood frenzy. With a flash of cape and a flicker of colorful tights the go-between goes between, making everything in the world right again. My Mediator motto, though… Where’s The Fruitbat?!
Upon donning my tummy-tucking suit of mediation, I unwittingly must have accepted the mantle of Official Go-Between for everyone. Was there a worldwide rights contract I didn’t know about? Did I sign it in my sleep? If so, I’m thinking my newly flat stomach royalties gained aren’t up to the percentage snuff of the services I provide.
At the end of the day, when I’m exhausted by the struggle of removing my mediation girdle, I sometimes stare at the doorways in our house, study the clock showing midnight on its glow-in-the-dark face, and wonder…
I threw a penny at a ‘tween place once, during the ‘tween time. It disappeared.
No. As much as the urge might tempt me, I enjoy it all too damn much to stop.
