June 2004

Hailyn Nielsen • Family Matters

"Hailyn, this is your father; it’s 7 a.m. – time to wake up. Wake up, Hailyn. HAILYN, it’s time to WAKE UP! And don’t forget to do your taxes today. OK, hopefully, you’re up and out the door already.”

The familiar voice of my father attempts to coax me out of bed from 120 miles away. It’s a beautiful Tuesday morning in April, but all I want to do is sleep a few minutes longer. For the past few weeks, I’ve been having more and more trouble waking up on time for my Tuesday and Thursday 8:30 a.m. organic chemistry laboratory. After breaking a round bottom flask, shattering a graduated cylinder, misplacing my separatory funnel, and spilling vast quantities of foul smelling, probably dangerous organic chemicals all over my bench, the three hour class period is hardly something to anticipate so early in the morning.

Soon after I started sleeping in, I started having more and more trouble motivating myself to do homework and study as well. I think I’m officially in a rut. All I want to do is sleep all day. I look at the clock – 7:05. Just ten more minutes. I’ll skip breakfast.

Realizing that sleeping all day—though relaxing—would inevitably result in the rapid and unrecoverable decline of my grades, I enlisted the help my father to aid me with my dilemma.

The man is like a machine. You can tell time by him. He’s up every weekday at 6 a.m. The coffee’s started at 6:10, and he’s in the shower by 6:15. He’s dressed and starting his day at 7 sharp. You know it’s after noon if he’s switched from coffee to Mountain Dew. He watches the news at 10 and goes to bed at 10:30. You can always turn to Dad when you need a little stability.

But Dad’s the kind of guy that’s always on top of his responsibilities. He’s never late. He never has mental lapses. He never has “motivational problems” like the ones that plague me around final exam time. He never procrastinates. He’s just not capable of it. So, he’ll wake me up in the morning, but he still just doesn’t understand why I can’t do it myself. No, for mental, emotional, existential help, you’ve got to go to Mom. Working a menial 9 – 5 job well beneath her capabilities, she empathizes when I get fed up with busywork or a monotonous schedule. Without a doubt, my family is the single stabilizing force in my life. They keep me happy; they keep me grounded; they keep me sane.

As I lay in bed debating whether to heed the advice of my father and go to class, I imagine what I would do without my parents, without my family. Not only would I not be chronically late – or absent - for organic chemistry laboratory, I probably wouldn’t function at all.

In some ways, it’s like I never left home. My dad still wakes me up for school. I ask my mom for advice on all my classes. Any time I’m depressed, or angry, I call home and talk it off. Every time I get a grade on a test, or a paper, or an exam, I call home and boast, as if I were in second grade asking mom to put my Social Studies quiz on the fridge. I’m amazed at how dependent I still am on my family. It gives me the best kind of feeling when Dad says, “You know we’re proud of you, kiddo.” I do, of course, but it’s so comforting to hear it.

The phone rings again, louder this time. “Hailyn, your mom wanted me to try you again. It’s ten-after-seven. It’s time to get up. You’re only got a couple of weeks left. Let’s get going. Call us tonight; have a good day.”

I wish I were home right now. I wonder if they have any idea how I much I rely on them.

Every time I think about how much my family means to me, I wonder about my own future family. I know I want kids. I know I want a career. I just don’t know how to have them both. My friends make fun of me for it, but an Oprah show I saw about two years ago resonated with me. I’ve got until about age 20 until my eggs start getting precariously old. That also happens to be right around the time I’ll finally be finishing school.

Before I get too far on this tangent, I’ll stop myself. Thinking about these things for too long too seriously digs me deeper into this rut. I’m getting ahead of myself, I have to make it out of this semester alive first. But, then again, what’s the point if I don’t have any hopes or dreams I hope to fulfill. All I want to do is stay in bed.

The alarm goes off – 7:15 am. I painfully twist around and lean down to reach the snooze button without getting down from my loft. I should really move the alarm clock farther away from my bed. I wonder if I’ll be a good mom. It’s tiring to think of all the times I’ll have to weather that tight feeling in my chest. When I’m driving over just the right kind of bump at just the right speed, I get the same feeling – a tight tingling swells, and then recedes. Any time I realize I’m in an impossible situation, or a frightening situation, I get the same feeling. I can’t imagine letting my kids ride their bike around the neighborhood alone for the first time. What if something happens? I hope I’ll be a good mother.

Everyone talks about how they’ll never become like their mother or their father. Everyone plans to parent in exactly the opposite manner as their parents. I only hope I’ll be able to do it as well as mine have. It’s 7:30 am. I get up, get dressed, get packed, and go to class.

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