Bad blogger, I know. It's just been a hell of a month, and I haven't been able to drum up the wherewithal to post.
It started with our girls' weekend in March, a weekend in Vermont with my three best friends. A weekend where we could manage to all be in the same place at the same time. J and B, already within an hour of each other, in Vermont and Massachusetts. T, visiting from Utah, doing a guest teaching project at her highschool alma mater, Holderness. And me, able to wrangle a weekend alone, leaving my girl with her papa and grandparents, leaving her overnight for the first time ever.
It was supposed to be a weekend full of old friendships and remembering, laughter and wine, and great food, and maybe manicures and spas, and sleeping in, and staying up late, and talking, talking, talking, because nothing is like all of us together, synapses in synch, talking. We tried our best, but it wasn't to be. We were dropped in the middle of J's tangled divorce from our good friend F. We stayed at their house, as they swapped time there with their three boys. They can't be in the same place. She's moving out. We tried to bridge the horrible, the awkward, to project our love to J and F, but it was hard, so hard, as we saw the pieces coming apart in front of us, wrenching our guts and our hearts. We dissected it, talked about other things. We did laugh, we did talk, we did enjoy good wine. But it was exhausting, with the crackle of hurt and anger in the air all around us, where there used to be love. It was amazing to see my friends, and wonderful for the four of us to be together, as we so rarely are, but it was so hard. Instead of leaving rejuvenated, I left drained, emotionally exhausted.
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And then it seems like it's been one thing after another, and I just can't quite recover from any of it, all of it. Colds, allergies, me feeling terrible and tired and going to bed early. I can't sleep in anymore - I am permanently stuck on Eastern Toddler Daylight Time, wide awake at 6am, listening for my girl to wake up and call for me. I can't nap, even when she naps, unless someone else has full responsiblity for her. I am always half-listening, ready to be there when she wakes, when she needs me.
I had several nights where I just couldn't sleep either, for no good reason. Where 4am and I were becoming all too familiar friends. I wasn't worried or stressed particularly. Just awake. And then I'd start thinking about the book I was reading (Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - really effing good) or whether Bernstein was the other journalist with Woodward, or were those the Broadway writers? No, that was Leonard and Bernstein....yeah, really fucking useful stuff at 4am.
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I applied for a job, did the first round interview, then panicked, then withdrew my application. It was in-house, for a supervisory job in my office. I felt like I had to apply, and one of my bosses came by my office no less than four times to tell me to apply. Because he thought I'd be a good boss. And I might be. Someday. Just not now. Now, I don't want that at all. I want less responsibility, frankly, not more. If I could work less, I would. If I could go part-time, I would. But it isn't an option. So I'm going to take my bare eight hours a day, the flexibility, the fact I could do this job mostly in my sleep (and I probably sometimes have), so I can scoot out of here every day as quick as possible with no regrets to be home with my girl. But still. It is hard to choose to not be ambitious.
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The weather has been maddening. We get one 80 degree day, followed by one back in the 50's. Too much rain and wind. I am desperate for sun, for warmth, for summer. For fewer clothes, and water and the ease of just going outside to entertain the girl.
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I have tired of having another child who is not mine in my house at least three days a week. We share our nanny with another family, and their daughter is at our house with the Olive. I'm sure she is a perfectly nice child. But I only see it when she bullies our girl in a ploy to get attention as all the parents arrive, when she bites my daughter on the finger right in front of me. And I hear from the nanny and find the evidence of this girl throwing her lunch all over my kitchen when she doesn't like it. She also chose to smear the contents of the training potty over our basement bathroom last week. I know children do these things. Except it isn't MY child trashing my house; it's someone else's child, and I'm tired of scraping her applesauce off of my ceiling and walls. It's only until August, then they both go to preschool, another stressor looming in my anxiety closet.
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We went to New Jersey last weekend, for an early Passover celebration with Seth's family. These weekends are normally lots of fun, and I look forward to having extra adults to entertain the Olive, while I sneak in some book reading and lounging around, and maybe even lunch out. Again, it wasn't to be.
When we got there, we went to visit Great Grandpa Max, who is 94, sharp as a tack, and recovering from a bout of pneumonia in a nursing facility before he can move back to his own apartment. I hate anything...medical. Hate it, viscerally. You can dress it up like a first-rate hotel, and I still feel such an immediate horror when I see the hospital beds, the medical equipment, smell those smells. It took everything I had not to run out of there, and to stop and visit with Max, who is wonderful and a wonder, asking us to plan for birthday no. 95, next March. Max has always been strong and healthy and sharp, but he has gotten frailer in the past few years. He is doing fine after this pneumonia, but we may not have him for much longer, and I am so much sadder and more afraid of this possibility than I thought I would be. Max became part of my family five and a half years ago, on a clear October day. He is a great-grandfather to thirteen, including my Olive, and I selfishly want him around longer, please.
We bid farewell to Max, went back to Seth's parents' house for our favorite Chinese takeout, so much better than what we can get in DC. I ate too much, went to bed too full, and woke up less than an hour later to the Olive crying for me from the next room. As soon as I walked in, I knew what had happened. That acrid smell, her sticky pajamas. Crap. It would be a long night. I called for Seth, who tossed everything in the wash and covered our bed with acres of towels to prepare for the onslaught. I suddenly felt lightheaded, and sat down before I could pass out, holding the sick Olive. This was not good.
But we survived the night. It wasn't as bad as the last time the Olive got a stomach bug, and she was surprisingly lively by midmorning. She napped; I tried to. We made it to the family seder, made bearable only when Seth's cousin's husband Eric brought me a large glass of cabernet. Eric understands me. We made it home after a long drive on Sunday, and the Olive was amazingly good in the car, with a little help from the iPad. And no one threw up. At least not until the stomach bug felled me on Monday. I knew it was bad when i was lying on my office floor at work, unsure if I would be able to get up.
So, I've eaten nothing but Gatorade and saltines this week. I've spent both too much time lying in bed and not enough. I'm still exhausted. I'm behind at work. I actually cancelled an eye doctor appointment today so I can do work. The weather went from 84 yesterday afternoon to 54 this morning. The Olive has been in an ungodly willful state of mind, where she doesn't just say "No!" when she doesn't want to do something, she screeches it at a volume of eleven in a voice that sounds like a baby Nazgul. And she woke up with a runny nose this morning. I almost cried as I dragged my still-sick self to work, leaving my maybe-getting-sick girl who wanted me to hold her, almost cried from the weight of one more thing and the guilt.
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I can't remember not being tired. The weekend is coming, but it's not so much like a break, because there is still a child to amuse, laundry to do, people to feed. I don't really want a babysitter so I can go out to dinner. I want a day where I can just lie around the house, read books, nap, drink wine in the middle of the day, nap some more, not cook, have other people feed me. What is that called? Because I need it.