You Remember When Melanie Died And All Ashley Wilkes Could Talk About Were Baby Booties And...

My mother said something this morning that has me just a little bit worried, even scared, if you will. First, a little background. Because I live 90 miles from where I work, I spend two nights a week at my mother’s house in the West End.
My mother is almost 82 years young (don’t you hate it when people say it that way?) and still going pretty strong. She still drives her car, although by Braille. She picks up her aunts and takes them shopping. Even when they don’t want to go. I think it’s kind of neat that there’s an 81-year-old woman with three aunts still living.
Anyway, my mother has gotten on a sewing jag lately. She’s always loved to sew. She even once made a sports coat for me, which, to show my appreciation, I actually had to wear in public on an occasion or two. It was made of some fabric that was a cross between polyester and rubber. I think she bought the material at the Ringling Brothers surplus store.
Now she’s sewing baby blankets and bibs. She thinks she could start a little cottage industry, and I think it’s great that an 81-year-old woman is interested in starting a business. Maybe she’ll make a fortune, which I could inherit.
Anyway, last night she comes upstairs from her sewing room and shows me her little blankets. I tell her how nice they are. I am a good son, and actually, they did look rather cute. I’m thinking that she’s still a pretty sharp old woman.
A half hour later she comes back upstairs. “Let me show you what I’m doing,” she says proudly. She then shows me the same blankets and bibs she had showed me earlier. Hey, she is 81.
This morning at breakfast, she says, “Let me show you some blankets I’ve made.”
“Mom,” I say kindly, “you’ve already shown me twice.” I believe in sparing someone’s feelings, but not if it means I have to look at blankets three times.
She took it pretty well. She even laughed about it, but then she said something that scared me. She said, “I worry sometimes about losing it (her mind, I guess), but then I think maybe I already have and I just don’t know it.”
Now she has me worried. She’s right. If you lose your mind, how would you ever know it. For instance, I could be sitting here at my keyboard typing in gibberish, and yet it looks like a piece of brilliant writing to me.
You could even write back and tell me I must be losing my mind, but I read it and think you said, “Steve, you’re brilliant.” I could even be sitting in a padded room twiddling my thumbs and just imagine that you and I are having this delightful repartee.
Heck, maybe you don’t even exist. Maybe, it’s all just a little world I created. If that’s so, I think I’d just as soon keep this little game going with myself.
But, as I ponder on this even more fully, something else is bothering me. If my world is all in my warped little brain, why couldn’t I have created a world where I’m really successful? I’d prefer to have a false reality where I’m a big Hollywood writer. No, forget being a writer. I wish I lived in a little world where I was a big Hollywood star…handsome, successful, popular, mentally sound in every way. In other words, why can’t I just be in a world where I’m Tom Cruise?