Whew.
I tried to enjoy this summer, honestly. And I did, more than last year, or at least I remember more than last year, and if the disaster that is my house is any kind of evidence, I at least stayed busy. Too busy to maintain a tidy habitat, anyway.
I've got that short-breathed desperation again, the kind that makes me feel crazy and determined just enough that it paralyzes me, walks me around in circles against my will, shows me just enough that I'm crazed with desire and helplessness at the same time. Truth told, I am afraid, I am going another round with too-old-for-this-shit, too tired. Poor me, indeed.
The desire to keep busy burned a hole in my pocket and I spent all my energy most days by noon, the rest of the day fueled on fumes and dips and conversations well-intended but foggy. With a small child as my constant companion, more loved than any boy could ever know, more frustrating than a chronic cough, more kinetic than plasma, more unfocused than an old pair of glasses, my time was both squandered and well-spent. I loved our summer, our first one together, I didn't know how little I knew him, and I'd forgotten how attachment breeds independence; he changed, he grew, he says, "goodnight, mama, sweet dreams, see you in the morning," most nights without desperate cries for lights on and endless singing. He waves goodbye now, with confidence, he believes I'll return. Of course, I'd never dream of not doing so.
He'll return to school this week, and I will miss him. He is beyond excited, so anticipatory and gleeful in a way that I never felt as a child returning after summer, he even has an outfit picked out. I am choking on my sadness, overwhelmed in a way that I could never have anticipated by the fact that we will be separated more than thirty hours a week...we haven't been separated thirty hours all summer. In my case, the attachment bred dependence and I feel foolish, ashamed to need him so much, he's so small, I'm not his responsibility. I think this might be normal, in the emotional realm, but I'm not acquainted with that kind of normal.
August battered me like a tin cup in a hail storm. Sleepwalking, futile blood work, vivid and telling dreams that ruined whole next days and opened doors that should probably open but I'd just as soon have kept closed. I neglected love, the grown-up kind, and I take for granted that it stands sentry, still, but it is hungry and the cupboard is bare. Not forever, but August was starving. Perhaps we're in for a fall harvest of another color, entirely. I hope so, I miss love.
