Exhaling’s on the Schedule for Tomorrow

(Written last night)

Yesss!  Today was the kids’ last day of school.  My last day at the school’s libraries.  My last day to drive in with the tuba in the back of the van.  My last day packing all those lunches.  My last day gambling—do I take a minute to go to the bathroom and risk missing getting the kids to the bus in time or just be miserable until I get back home? 

And on and on. 

It just feels like starting tomorrow, my life will slow down and it’s a darn good thing.

The past three hours:  I bought groceries and got the pleasure of putting all those away.  I walked Scooter to the bus stop as a last-day-of-school-treat for the youngest kids and he proceeded to drag me down the road thanks to that thin coating of tiny gravel and the 100+ pound of craziness he turned loose when another dog came up.  He lunged for the other dog in an aggressive way and that will be the last time ever I take him out, period.  I am so mad at him.

And then I got Sam and Caroline up to the Y lickety-split in time for a swim test so we would know where they need to be placed for swimming lessons which then I booked. 

Then back home and I had supper cooking when our little kindergarten-age neighbor boy sauntered up our drive—alone.  He lives more than a third of a mile past our house on the hilly, curvy road.  He came in the house and walked up to me silently (and he is normally a loud kid) and gave me a hug.  ??  I asked where his mom was and did she know he was here and he pretty much headed for the door to escape the questioning, so I knew he was a runaway.  She was out looking for him so she didn’t answer her phone but as I had him in our van to drive him home, she drove by and, boy, was he in trouble.  And should have been.  I don’t know, but the whole thing was kinda upsetting.

Kinda like my dream from this morning when I backed the  van off into a flooded ditch and it started to go down Titanic-style and I was frantically trying to gather up the loose change from the cup holder when I realized the water was up to my legs and I should instead be thinking about how to get out before all those doors were pressurized and I was trapped.  How’s that for symbolism?  So anyway, it felt like my day started stressy-stressed from the get-go.

So now I have a huge supper mess (spaghetti sauce, the worst) to clean up and Gary’s not even home yet to eat and I need so badly to take my scratchy contacts out but tomorrow, <breathe> it will all be better.