What Runs 'Round in my Head

Surgery is rescheduled for April 4^th. Did I mention that already?

Naomi and Bethany are downstairs watching “Flipped” while Peter is upstairs practicing the violin and crying because he’s not watching the movie. Am I just mean? I don’t feel sorry for him. Am I supposed to? Instead of doing his school list today, while I was at the doctor he was on the phone-- for almost an hour. Peter is grounded from the phone. And has been for several weeks.

What is happening to my life? I feel like I’m falling into a black hole, things are getting weirder and weirder, the world is turning upside down, and all the while, I’m too dazed to do anything but tumble downward, heels over head, with a vague feeling that I might be about to crash into a nasty ending, or become spaghettified. And then I wander off to look for toenail clippers and wonder if there is anything for dinner, and if we really have to eat, or if we might just all float away.

Will I be stuck here forever?

I used to think there was a happy ending coming up- any moment now. Prince Charming was about to carry me off to his castle in the sky. Or at least in southern France. His staff would clean the bathrooms. My children would attend private schools with programs that would make Bethany smile, Naomi recover from kleptomania, and Peter become the charming young man he was meant to be. Prince Charming’s money would pay for it all. And I would wear cotton dresses and entertain guests in the gazebo out back after a day of horseback riding along the beach with my husband. At night we would lie in bed and hold each other and it would be amazing because we were so in love. On holidays we would take little trips to Turkey and the Maldives.

I’m afraid that’s not happened. Frozen pizzas and moldy caulking have been my lot. And I don’t see an end in sight. I’m beginning to feel as if I’m waking form a dream of published novels and cute little houses (let alone southern France) and seeing that if I don’t get a real job, we are going to starve. I’ve dropped all the kids’ classes. No more music, dance or online history classes. I don’t even usually check their schoolwork. We are dangerously close to unschooling. I find myself thinking that a day on the computer with a guitar playing Taylor Swift songs might pass as a good education. What will become of these kids? I started homeschooling because I thought public school was a joke. My kids needed something more rigorous. Now I’m happy if they put in a good half hour with a workbook.

But what is the alternative? Traditional life? We all leave in the morning and come home exhausted at night to eat our frozen pizza, take a shower with the moldy caulking and drop into bed exhausted, just to get up with a buzzer and do it all again? I believe I would lose the particle of sanity I have managed to hide away under my bed. And covered in dog hair though it is, I don’t want to lose it.

I dream of running away to Europe and living out of a suitcase as we travel from place to place. No mortgage payment. But also no solitude. When would I be alone? How could I ever write anything? Then I imagine a lighthouse on the shore where we pick blueberries and the kids climb about on the beach while I write. Notice the lack of school in these fantasies. Notice the lack of dinner and laundry and reality. I am still a dreamer, wandering down the road, late, but unaware of clocks and mundane things like money. The clouds are lovely. And perhaps those pink blossoms could fall, spinning, like rain or stars, and light my path, carpet my world. I hear water running and remember the kitchen ceiling leaks if water falls on the kids’ bathroom floor. Not only do I not know how to fix it, I do not have time nor money to fix it, and I don’t even want to fix it. There is something romantic about having to put a pot on the kitchen counter every time someone showers. Eventually the ceiling will rot and fall into a pot of tomato soup. But perhaps by then I will have moved out.

Reality. If I pretend it is not real, perhaps it will go away.

And then we’re back to the dreams of Prince Charming, southern France, touring Europe and lighthouses in Maine. And the reality that depending on how the divorce settlement goes, I might be right here—leaky ceiling and all—for the rest of my life.

I’ve got to take matters into my own hands. I’m going to go order church magazines. One tiny step for reading material. One giant leap in the right direction.

(sigh) at least I hope it is.