Won't you come and save me.I wish tonight for a white linen-covered table overlooking the water, a damned good bottle of wine and even better coffee, and a meal of pasta with greens and exotic cheese, and a basket of very freshly baked bread. I'll let the server place the napkin on my lap for me and I'll sit and contemplate the waves and the breeze while I savor every delicious bite. Then a long walk to look at boats and then I'd like to watch a movie that makes me laugh and be glad I saw it.
Reality (which I have come to resent) dictates that instead I'll cook a quick dinner for the children and then a second dinner for Benjamin when he comes home and then in the blink of an eye we'll eat and go to bed and be asleep before the sun goes down.
I. hate. this. schedule. It's been three days (a lie. It's been six months.).
Hate is too mild of a word but I know. I understand the point of the work and the way it flows and I am so incredibly grateful that he is appreciated, in demand and still loves it but after the way this year started I just have this overwhelming urge to grab him by the front of his shirt and push, pull and stuff him into a box and wrap the box in chains and padlock it shut and maybe learn a little bit of welding too, and then I would hold it carefully behind my back in both hands and shake my head innocently, ignorantly while people walked all around me wondering where he could be.
Yes, that's what I would like to do.
And in a perfect world, I would.
Thankfully nothing is perfect. Ben wouldn't like it. He needs to be tinkering if he is awake, there is simply no other way. He likes to be busy, he likes to just put his head down and ride out the difficult parts and he likes to focus on the present.
He likes burgers and fries and napkins with well-known brands printed on them. Quick and easy. He doesn't drink wine. He doesn't know what the hell to do with the side of me that hates reality except to say that it doesn't matter if I don't like it, I'm stuck with it.
Begrudged acceptance isn't quite what I had in mind this evening. The move is finished, we're just about through the last of the paperwork concerning address changes and becoming full-fledged west-coasters, we have new furniture and everything is put away and hung up and cleaned six times over and I have sought out every last amenity we need, where the best place is to buy guitar strings and lactose-free milk and good bread and the skincare I like to use. I have found neat places to take the children and we've explored the woods and the creeks and the rivers and the pacific and the road and the parks.
What I need, badly, is a vacation.
But I don't want to see my suitcase ever again and I'm still weirdly thrilled that I can leave my hairbrush, my perfume, seventeen lip glosses and my jar of cocoa butter just sitting out all over the place across the giant counter in the bathroom and all of it is still there next time I walk into the bathroom. I still haven't decided if I want the window in the walk-in closet to have the blinds open or closed. Am I going to flip the light on and walk in naked and someone outside might see? And really, who is going to be right outside my window at that hour? (Shhh, we know that answer haha).
So I need a home-cation or a stay-cation or whatever the hell it's called when you just take time off and have fun instead of just working your way through list after list and hoping to nurture and fulfill everyone while scrubbing toilets, shopping and cooking and maybe spending three minutes a day writing a journal entry or downloading a new theme for the ever humming BlackBerry.
I need a fucking white-linen table and a good dinner. Really that's it. Not the moon tonight, not a flight overseas or thousands of dollars worth of luxuries, just some pasta and wine.
And Ben in my hands, chained inside a box. Just so I could enjoy him for once instead of continuing to say goodbye all the time.