Do you ever have those days where nothing goes spectacularly awful and yet you think that if you could just load your car with a big jug of extra foamy cappuccinos and bags of beef jerky you would just drive and drive until you got tired of driving? And then you would turn around and go home and then you would feel lighter and the funk would be gone and you would feel lovely and it would have just been a nice break from just another Wednesday?
That was my day.
Lately, Pumpkin has been waking up in these horrid moods. I am grateful that she’s no longer waking up before 6 a.m. – but these moods she starts the day in – these delicate moods where she has a meltdown if the dog wags his tail the wrong way – they undo me. To start my day like that… it’s difficult.
We ran errands – the library, finished Christmas shopping. There was another meltdown at home about lunch (her, not me). And with every tantrum I could feel those little pieces of pleasant fading. Trying to balance getting things done and not having a meltdown of my own kind of made me retreat into myself. I longed for a nap – just fifteen minutes of calm – I may have fallen asleep during a marathon of “Land Before Time” – I don’t know. I opened my eyes less together, more groggy than when I had settled in on the sofa.
And then I curled up and Pumpkin curled up in the space I left and then the puppy curled up propping his head on my legs and in that moment it was fine. Calm, even.
The Christmas tree is in the playroom so the dog won’t knock it over or eat the ornaments from the low branches – and I admit, not seeing it regularly makes me forget it’s even there. Christmas is in ten days and I wrap presents and put them under the tree in the playroom – shoving aside Barbies and stuffed animals hoping that Christmas morning we’ll be able to find everything we stashed beneath the tree. I miss the Christmas tree.
This afternoon, Pumpkin and I shared a bowl of popcorn. She said to me, “Sharing a bowl of popcorn with your parents is fun. I like sharing with you best of all. Sometimes parents get grumpy about popcorn.” I don’t even know what that means.
The cold has a way of getting to me – making the inconsequential seem huge, making the silly petty things seem much bigger than they should. The kids have cabin fever. I do too. We’re cranky and grumpy.
Tomorrow is a new day and there will be school holiday parties and pancake breakfasts (WHY PANCAKES? WHY IS IT ALWAYS PANCAKES? WHAT DO PEOPLE HAVE AGAINST WAFFLES?!). Sandwiched between holiday parties, somehow I will try to beat my to-do list with a tennis racket until it yields to me and fades into a distant memory. Or, y’know, just so’s I have every line item scribbled out and I can walk away knowing I accomplished something.
Tomorrow is new.
And I’ll start fresh. We’ll all start fresh and maybe we’ll make something better with it than we did today.
If nothing else, at least there’ll be pancakes.
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