I'm not me today. I don't know how I am but I always feel just a little bit lost when the children go back to school. I had planned to take the day easy, to spoil myself just a little bit. A manicure, maybe some shopping. Coffee or lunch out. But I couldn't do it because I figured I was alone for the first time in a couple of months I should probably get some things done, so I did those things, and I accomplished as much in one day as I was averaging per week so I feel pretty good and I may just give myself a manicure now with an hour to spare and then I'll be all set.
For those who wanted a coffee update I am holding steady at 16 ounces a day, twelve on weekends. The narcolepsy isn't so bad and the quality of my sleep seems to be improving. Our bed is six inches higher now. I may need a ladder to get in soon. I cannot reach down and pet the dog on the floor and if you remember the minimalist me of high school and university I always eschewed beds proper for a mattress on the floor. Even Cole and I had our mattress set on the floor. Now it's almost at waist level. I feel like I sleep in Gulliver's bed. Fee-fi-fo-fum.
New to the equation that is life is eighty ounces of water a day. Yes, I said eighty. Ounces. I am mad, aren't I? It's easier to pull off than I thought and the benefits are immediately obvious. Dumb health issues seem to be evaporating (Or maybe I have drowned them) and I am almost good with not having to pee every fifteen minutes. I'm up to twenty-five minutes. Haha. This will make everything better and has the added bonus of killing my appetite ten times over. Possibly into the future, even.
The children like their classes and mates, that was a worry I can put to rest now. Check.
Dog is down to five walks a day and doing great. For a while there I beat a steady path out the back door and down into my perennial garden where he would pee and then thirty minutes later we would do it all again. He's just like me except possibly I look much cuter on the end of a leash.
Oh, for heaven's sake. Lighten up.
Ben goes back after dinner tonight. With those empty promises in hand and more distractions and pressure than ever and he's fine with all of it. I'm hoping it doesn't take another milestone to get him home again because he is terrible with giving me his schedule, when I have everyone elses', collected as they scrawl with a half-empty black papermate pen into the dayplanner we use, writing with the dusty bumper of the van as a hard surface while I stand on the gravel on the shoulder of the highway and they always take my face in their hands and kiss me on the lips and tell me they will call often and miss me tons and they'll be back in exactly x-number of days and my hair is blowing all around my face and the dust is oppressive. I've got the dayplanner clutched against my chest as I wave until I can't see the van anymore. Dust mixed with tears makes a mess and I always come home and stick my face in a basin full of icy-cold water and promise myself I will mack on the ones who are here until they go and by then someone else will be home again.
I always hope it's Ben, but it never is. He goes the furthest, and stays the longest and it's the hardest.
