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Jealous

I took an hour bath this morning.  I was cold after my tiny yoga/getting the kids off/john off session and so I filled the tub with hot water and climbed in and opened a real book and read read for an hour or maybe . . . more.

I don't know because I ignored everything and I only know when I got out, not when I got in.

I'm letting my hair dry crinkly and frizzy and I'm wearing comfort clothes and watching the clouds outside my window get heavier and darker.  They look pregnant and I want to yell at them, Just give birth already!  Let that heavy water fall right down on us.  I know I'm ridiculous but that doesn't seem to stop me.

These days, now the fifth day, of the children all being gone for a few hours (six may seem like a lot to you, but to me, they seem like a blip in the day), I find I am fiercely jealous of my hours alone.  I turn my phone on silent, I shut my shutters and hide in my bedroom at the back of the house.  I pray that everyone will forget that I'm "free" and not call to ask for anything--even a lunch date.  I know, it's nuts that this time has made me into a crazy hermit, but that's what it's done.  My theory is that now that I have time . . . a little time . . . I want to be able to do with it what I will.

Like this morning, I was cold, freezing actually, shaking with pale fingers and shivery shoulders, this morning, running around cleaning up the house and getting the clothes ready to wash when I saw my bathtub, huge and unused glinting at me.  I dropped everything I was doing and holding, turn on the hot  water and climbed in.  I sank into the heat and let every productive thought go out the window.

If I had lunch plans, I couldn't do that.

If I had an appointment, I couldn't do that.

If I had any plans at all I couldn't do that.

Which explains why I can't make them.  I want to know that when I wave good-bye to the last of my lovely little people, I can go straight back to bed or to the mall or pull out my duster (just kidding, I would NEVER EVER do that, dusting is . . . well, bad for my health) and go to town.  I want to NOT know what I have to do so that I can let exactly what I WANT to do happen.

So does this mean I've become the opposite of what I've been for years--the super human productive machine?

Hum.

Maybe.

And yet, I can not sum up even the tiniest bit of remorse about that machine going kaput. In fact, I may actually feel slightly gleeful about that machine me kicking the bucket.

She was boring.  She was way to focused on doing and producing and being effective.  Shah, what's fun about efficiency?

Blick.

All I can say is, bring on inefficiency and dreaming and lazing and cooky baking at 7:45am.

Bring it! I'm so ready for you!

Oh, how ready I am for you.


Comments

  1. Yes, Mary! Your store of self is filling back up just like the water in the tub. I feel this way all of the time about my time. And I love it when I have time to read, wander through my thoughts and house and writing. It's good.

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