This stage of life can be a bitch; this interim between heaving the productive burdens of motherhood over the smooth shoulder of devotion and duty and those first token steps onto the foreign shore of obsolescence and aged infertility.
And as I separate the expired dream from the present dreamer, it becomes clear where the new load of compromise will have to be deposited: Right on the doorstep of 'Get Over It.'
My hope is that this stasis will not long remain and that as I visually register the sight of my daughter and her husband driving away in their Uhaul to their new home two states away in three days, I will feel the shift towards rediscovery and actively begin deconstructing my domestic persona.
That soon I can stop having to try so God-damned hard to recognize normal.
I shouldn't have to try so hard, you know, and had I paid closer attention to the fact that for the past 28 years my chief interest has been the preservation of the sanity, normality and happiness of those around me, I might have amended my focus just enough to allow for the same consideration to be applied to my own.
As it stands now, I have no one but myself to blame, which doesn't make the current trip I'm forging down memory lane any less nauseating.
For the past three days I have been conjoined at the conscience with my husband as we have undertaken the massive job of clearing out the attic of our home, and it has become regretfully apparent that when even one of your children has for whatever reason, bailed on their pact with integrity and folded into the dark, the one place in which you don't care to spend an abundance of time is among the recollective triggers of the past.
Now who in the world does not have an attic housing the past?
Ours certainly falls into that category serving as a repository for everything from ill-conceived hobbies involving all manner of mediums that never made an inroad of more than half a project; instrumental passions that were best left to those who actually are musically inclined; articles of clothing whose best days were well after the Beatles first landed at JFK and well before Lindsay Lohan landed in jail;
piles of books that provided fodder to no one other than the resident mice who fed upon them;
visually heinous pieces of furniture that seemed like such a good idea at the time of purchase; to the dozens of boxes, bags and trunks full of photographs that would be best viewed without the scrutiny of the regret that I now hold at bay through sheer denial.
This stage of life should come with anti-depressants or at the very least a letter of reassignment replete with detailed instructions as to the new protocols and expectations. And for those of us whose foray into domesticity and parenthood was not overtly successful, it should come with an automatic reprieve.
But the sun is rising now and the birds are hailing the new day with their chirping enthusiasm, which I must admit is catching.
And so once more I will make my way into another undefined 24-hour crucible of inconsistencies, unpredictability, grating apprehension and complete amazement until the cycle brings either clarity or exhaustion.
Because as long as I keep getting up and out of bed, I am making progress.
