What goes around...

My stint at Ogilvy changed one thing about me - I do not take even the most boring commercials for granted. Even if it is a home-printed handout that the local dry cleaners leave on the front porch, it gets its due attention. I look and analize if the message is said in a honest and entertaining manner. So it was but natural that I noticed the commercial being aired for "Pure Michigan" which aims at enticing the audience with the taste of a 'Michigan morning.' The sun rises over a lush, wind bent grassland, there is a picture postcard perfect windmill in the foreground which for some strange reason makes my heart leap in a feeling of De-javu. The voice over tells that we humans have twenty five thousand mornings - give or take and we spend them on treadmills and traffics. And we should makes sure that a few of them are "Pure Michigan"
So the commercial made me do my usual detours. 'Twenty five thousand mornings' loomed large in my mind. It made me do my usual girl math - that is sixty eight something years of mornings we have by the way, and that made me rearrange my priorities about spending the left over mornings of my average life expectancy. If not 'Pure Michigan', let it be Pure California I thought. For someone who doesn't spend the mornings on treadmills and traffics, I thought I neither belong in the 'normal' nor in the 'ideal' category - which brings me to the point I am trying to blog about - not being a morning person and also not being in a position to deal with the other 'non morning person in the making' that is shaping up as we speak. A friend once asked me why all my blogs are late night. It is simple - My lights of my brain start functioning as the lights in my neighborhood go off and reach their momentum as the night progresses. That kind of explains why I am blogging wide awake at 1:53 am and why I panicked when the state of Michigan put before me the average number of mornings I have. It was like a 'pun intended' wake up call and it also stirred memories of my childhood which I am about to share with my august cyberspace company to make sense of my title:-)
I think I kind of borderline abused my mother with my non-morning personality. "What time is it?" I would mutter in a half asleep state, when she used to come into the room I shared with my sis to wake us both up to get ready for school. She would tell us the time. My mind used to do the girl math. "Another ten would not hurt" I would reassure myself and doze back to sleep and dream of getting up and getting ready. And then the dream would be interrupted by my mom's voice, climbing a notch on the irritation meter. "what time is it?" I would ask. "Time to get up" she would snap back. And then I would get my lazy, non morning butt out of the bed and get ready to school. Once I got up, I never wanted to go back and tuck myself in the sheets. Which kind of makes me wonder if I actually am a morning, non morning person - which is like being a morning person to begin with, but leaning more towards being a non-morning person just because I don't care to be what I really am. And why do I get a weird feeling that I am beginning to sound like Dr. Seuss?
Anyway - One day, my mom called out to wake me up and I did the usual "what time" routine and she gave me the usual 'sitcom' comeback. I drifted back to sleep. The moment I opened my eyes and gazed at the wall clock, I had an early teen heart attack of sorts since the time was past 10 am and I'd officially bunked the school:-)) Yeah - she kind of taught me a lesson - but being the wanting to be non morning person I was, I went back to my "what time?" question routine in no time though I was careful not to ask her for 10 mt extensions on the free wake up yells for a good month or so. I fondly remember those days as the precursor to the many tiffs my mom and I were going to have in the teen times to come.
Fast forward some years and Aarti my three year old needs to be in school by 8:45 am and I need to get up and get her ready and drive her to the place. I wake up, get ready and keep on trying to wake her up. Though she is not old enough to understand the concept of time, she has her own way of asking me to let her sleep. I come up with all kinds of innovative ideas to get her out of the bed to get her ready to go to school. I call her my baby, make bulky promises and let her take a bubble bath while the minute hand on the wall clock moves forward along with my stress levels. This to me is an 'aha' moment - an 'aha' that escapes inadvertently out of my lips as I sharpen my creativity to get a reluctant, persistent and adamant toddler out of the bed. An 'aha' that makes me wonder if this is what they mean by saying what goes around comes around.
I probably took after my dad in the morning department and gave my 'very morning' or 'can't afford to be non-morning' mom all the stress that my dear daughter gives me today. Today I am a morning person, though I do not see lush grasses and scenic landscapes in my mornings. All I see is sizzling skillets, piling dishes, out of control temperaments and feel grinding nerves. Did I tell I feel I sound like Dr Seuss?
Anyway, I realise, that if we look at the world - we all seem to stand in a circle. What we give from our one hand comes back to us form the other in the form of 'aha' moments, reality slaps, stressful mornings and monster kids. :-))

BTW, do you think it is the genes that make Aarti the way she is? I hope not. I do not want her to detour as much as I do and change topics as much as I do. Come to think of it, I should have done the voice acting for Dory in 'Finding Nemo' since I seem to change the topic more times that a partial amnesiac does:-)) On that note, I retire - hoping to make at least some of my left over mornings, nothing extraordinary or ecstatic - but just mornings sans drama!