Twenty years ago this week my dad died.  It was a Thursday, the last day of summer.  He’d been in the hospital for eleven days.  Earlier that summer he’d made it clear that he did not want to die in the hospital.  He known since May that he was going to die, sooner rather than later.  The doctors predicted he’d last four months to two years.

Four months after that diagnosis with a brain tumor and eleven days after he was hospitalized, we brought him home by ambulance.  They wheeled him down the hallway in a stretcher but he had to stand up and walk the last few feet, a fact that made him suddenly alert and pissed off.  He did not appreciate being coddled and prompted, “Just a few feet, Mr. Martin.  Just a few feet.”

I cradled a pillow in my arms, anxious and worried about those last few feet he needed to cross to reach the hospital bed waiting for him in my old bedroom.

Three of my aunts from Wisconsin had come to stay with me that week.  Aunt Lu spent all night sitting in a recliner next to my dad but he never regained consciousness.  When I woke up the next morning to get ready for work–because the mundane duties of life never seem to stop–my aunt told me that he’d been restless all night but he was resting comfortably.  She assured me that he’d be fine, that she’d call and let me know if anything changed.

While I was at work, a hospice nurse came to establish care.  I called at noon and received the report that he was the same.

At four, I drove into my driveway.  My aunt met me on the sidewalk to tell me that I needed to retrieve my sister from her job.  My dad was very close to death.

I drove a couple of miles to the fast-food restaurant where my sister worked.  I stood by the dessert case and asked for her.  When she appeared, I couldn’t speak.  My silence told her more than she wanted to know, so we hugged and cried.

Minutes later, we returned to the house.  My aunt warned us not to go to the bedroom because my dad was having seizures.  I went to his bedside anyway and found him stiff and shaking.  I retreated to the living room.

He died.

When I went back to see him, only his body remained.  It was so clear to me that he wasn’t there any longer.  He was gone.  I touched his beard.  Poor daddy.

Poor me.  Poor us.  He died when I was only 24.  He was 47.  Malignant melanoma–skin cancer–robbed us.  He had a whole life still ahead of him–and grandchildren he had yet to meet.

That was twenty years ago.

How quickly the years slide by, how the seasons speed by, circling around and around, summer fast on the heels of Christmas, pumpkins turning orange moments after Easter egg hunts end.

I miss him.

He would have loved being a grandpa.  How I wish I could wander into his garage and find him fiddling with computers and radios in various states of disrepair.  He would be listening to the golden oldies on the radios, while Morse code transmissions beep in the background.  I would bake him chocolate chip cookies and tell him funny anecdotes to make him laugh.  If he were here.

If only he were here.

James Taylor is an old man.

That’s my exact thought when I saw him take the stage at the Puyallup Fair on Saturday night.  He wore a knit cap and a pale blue shirt and blue jeans.  He walked like an old man, though,  and he looked old.  And I suppose he is old.

But, oh, that man can sing.  I’ve known some of those familiar songs since I was a child myself.  “You’ve Got a Friend” has been absorbed right into my bloodstream and is a part of me.

So, the night was lovely, neither hot nor cold.  The metal bench was hard, pain-inducing, but the view was great.  And the company, my husband of twenty-two years, was excellent.  He’s a great guy.

We could have had a nasty fight on the way to the concert because we were in the car.  That’s enough.  Just being in the car.  As a passenger I have certain expectations.  As in, I’m a passenger, not a navigator, not a co-pilot, not a traffic advisor.  And so when he says suddenly, “Is that our exit” and I glance up and say, “No,” that’s only because I wasn’t looking, I was preoccupied (with my iPhone, if you must know) and how am I supposed to know?  He’s been there many times before and how in the world does he not know which exit?

But you see, that last part I just kept to myself  because why start something?  We’ve been married for twenty-two years and for all of those twenty-two years we have been utterly incompatible in the car.  Just today we had that age-old conversation about depth perception–I say he ought to start braking when the cars in front of us brake, but he feels comfortable waiting until the last minute, after his wife has had heart failure from fright.  He says I should trust him considering the scientific fact that men and women have different depth perceptions (he heard this somewhere once) and I say he ought to be sensitive to my impaired depth perception and understand that I think we are about to DIE in a car crash, but mostly, we just keep our lips zipped.

So, we did not fight on the way to the concert.

* * *

Yesterday was Grace’s second soccer game.  She scored a goal, her first.  Her team played really well and trounced the other team.  Though it seems wrong to gloat since we are talking about six and seven year old girls.

My son had a football game later in the day, so it was about 3 p.m. before we were done with sporting events.  Then I spent my afternoon baking cookies, brownies and muffins to contribute to the funeral preparations.

Tomorrow, I’m taking the kids to the fair, just the two youngest.  The older kids don’t like to go.  (!!!)  Tuesday is the soldier’s funeral.  Every week is full of its own particular brand of crazy-busy.  Just when you think things have got to slow down and get normal, something else happens.  There is no normal.  Normal is a myth.

That’s why I’m writing this at 1:37 a.m.  Tomorrow I’ll regret staying up this late but at least I wrote a post.

You’re welcome.

Around here when the mountain snow melts suddenly the icy water causes the rivers to run too fast and too full.  The flood waters spill over their banks and seep into basements and living rooms, leaving thick gritty mud in their wake.

Our house does not sit in a flood zone, but I feel like I’ve been living in my own personal flood zone.  The past weeks have been a frantic rushing of churning events.  The events themselves have not all been bad, but their combined force has knocked me from my feet and left me grabbing for a solid hold.

Three weeks ago we celebrated Grace’s birthday.  I had a writing deadline and three school Open Houses (on the same night in different towns).  School began, a friend from Florida came through Seattle.  My regular full-time job continued to be regular and full-time.  Grace had her first soccer game.

Then I flew to New York on business.  The night before I left I worked until midnight, made school lunches, packed and went to bed at 1 a.m., then rose at 3 a.m. so I could leave my house at  4 a.m. so I could arrive at the airport at 5 a.m. so I could depart on a Delta flight where I sat in the middle seat between two arm-rest hogs for over five hours.

I hailed a taxi-cab at the airport and settled into my hotel by 4 p.m.  A few hours later, while walking down West Broadway alone, I ran into a movie set where they were taping a “Sex and the City” movie.  I stood and watched awhile but did not spy Sarah Jessica Parker.  Alas.

The next day was a whirlwind of meetings and events, starting at 8:45 a.m. and ending at 10:45 p.m.  Sometimes I cannot believe that I periodically fly to New York on business.  It’s surreal.  Luckily I have a husband who can take care of the family when I’m away.  Though no one washed a single dish in my absence.  Seriously.

On Wednesday morning, I woke before 8 a.m. and checked my email on my iPhone.  That’s how I learned that the young soldier I know was killed by an IED in Afghanistan, leaving his 5-months pregnant bride a widow.  I cried sudden, unbelieving tears.

Later that morning, I hailed another cab and flew out of Newark to Seattle.  I met a man from London embarking on an around-the-world trip which made the flight pleasant–and we had an empty seat between us so I did not have to share an arm-rest.

I returned home in time to work my 7 p.m. to 12 a.m. shift.

That was Wednesday night.  Thursday was a blur, mostly filled with work.  And a nap.

I am stumbling through today, so tired, so discombobulated.  The laundry taunts me.  My house is in a constant state of disarray.  I cannot stop thinking about the loss of Andrew and his widow, Sarah.

The rushing flood of events sweeps me along and sometimes I lose my footing.  When that happens I scarcely find time to think, let alone write.  I suspect that writing would anchor me, though.

And an anchor is what I need about now.

My daughter’s actual birthday was last Wednesday.  She turned 7.  My mother and I took her, her best friend and my son to an indoor play area called “Charlie’s Safari.”  (Highly recommend it, by the way, should you happen to be in this region.  Expensive but clean and new and it had an enclosed room just for parents.)

After the adventure, we hurried home so I could work for an hour.

Then I rushed out of the house again with my 11-year old and the 7-year old birthday girl.  His middle school Open House was from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.  The new middle school opened last year and while it is fancy and pretty and high-tech, it is located a good fifteen minutes from our house.  The last mile stretch to the school is a four-lane road with very little traffic.

As soon as I saw the police car on the other side of the road, I glanced at my speedometer.  Fifty miles an hour, it said.  The speed limit was either thirty or thirty-five.  Definitely not fifty.  I eased on my brake but the police car had already moved forward.  I looked back and saw it making a U-turn.

It was quite a bit behind me, so I hoped that my law-breaking had been unnoticed, that the car’s motion and U-turn were coincidental.  With a sigh of relief, I turned onto the road leading to school.

Only it didn’t lead to school.  It led to the Civic Center, home of the police station.  And it was a dead-end.  I pulled into the parking lot to turn around and as I did so, the police car turned onto the same road, heading toward me.  I waited for the police car to turn into the parking lot so I could exit and return to the street only the police car stopped short and motioned me to leave the parking lot.

I did and immediately, the police car with its flashing lights appeared in my rear-view mirror.

I pulled over.

The police officer, a young guy–everyone now seems younger than me–cautiously approached the open window of my mini-van.  He asked for my license, registration and proof of insurance.  Of course, my proof of insurance card is an old one–I never can seem to get the new slips of paper into the car in a timely manner–and I said, “But I promise, it’s up to date.”

He scanned my license and registration and then asked, “Do you know why I pulled you over?”

“Because I was going too fast.”

“Why?”

“Why?”

“Uh, because I am late.  I’m always kind of late.”

“Where are you going?”

“Uh, to a school open house.”

“Then why did you pull in here?”

“Because I’ve been to the school only two times,” I held up two fingers and wondered if I should have taken off my sunglasses, “and I thought this was the right road.  But it wasn’t.  The right road.”

“You weren’t trying to hide so I wouldn’t pull you over?”

“No!”  Oh, that I should be so naturally devious.

“When was the last time you got a ticket?”

Me, calculating what year it was that I lived in Bellingham and got pulled over while leaving the grocery store with provisions for a picnic lunch I was packing–it was before we had kids and our kids are 16 and how long ago would that have been?

“Twelve years?”

“Do you want me to give you a ticket?”

“Please, no!”

“Well, I’m giving you a warning.  I only give one warning.  The next time I catch you speeding, I will give you a ticket.”

“Okay.  Thank you.”

So, we were a few minutes late to the Open House.

After sitting on the bleachers to listen to the principal introduce all the teachers (such an exercise in futility–no one will remember the names of thirty or forty teachers), we went around and found each classroom and met each teacher.

Then rushed back home.  He changed into football gear.  I handed off our daughter to her dad so he could take her to her school Open House.  I dropped off the football son at practice, then rushed off to the mandatory virtual high school Orientation.  (That even took place thirty minutes away.)  I had to scrounge around in my car for two dollars in change to pay for parking.

Two hours later, rushed back home so I could work another three hour shift.

The next glorious day was the first day of school.  And I didn’t shed a single tear.  (More about that tomorrow.)

Moral of the story:  While driving on Center Drive, even though there is no traffic, put your car on cruise control and go 35 mph.  Or a young police officer will yell at you and threaten to give you a ticket that you deserve.

I’m tired.

Today was my daughter’s 7th birthday party.  My husband (God bless him) took our four kids to church by himself so I could stay home and take care of last minute party details.

As soon as they left, I embarked on two hours of completely non-party related activities, including mopping my boys’ bathroom floor (absolutely disgusting), cleaning out the litterbox (also disgusting) and gathering dirty dishes and glasses from the boys’ room.  I put away laundry, made a bed, swept up cat-fur tumbleweeds, did a couple loads of laundry, loaded the dishwasher (with all the dishes I found in the boys’ room), scurried here and there moving things to their rightful locations.

Finally, I showered and rushed off to buy ice and balloons–and I returned to Marshall’s to request that they please remove the security tag that they failed to remove from my daughter’s new swimsuit the other day.

I returned home with enough time to load up the Costco cake and an armful of beach towels and a carload of kids and a cooler and the matches and three push-pins and birthday candles and my camera with a freshly charged battery.

We arrived at the pool about three minutes before the party started.

Yikes.

However, and most importantly, the sun shone!  Summer returned.  And guests arrived.

Whenever we celebrate her birthday at the pool, I remember the day she was born.

I was due on September 5th and expected she’d arrive a week after her due date, simply because my son arrived nine days past his due date.  Plus, school started on September 3 and I wanted the kids to be settled before the baby arrived.  I thought September 10 would be perfect.

In 2002, on September 2, which happened to be Labor Day, I went into labor.  However, I did not believe that contractions five minutes apart was labor.  I noticed those contractions by lunch time.  So I fed the kids (frozen pizza) and told my husband that I just wanted to rest and I’d join him and the kids at the pool later in the afternoon.

They went to the pool and I ran bathwater.  It is said that a bath will stop false labor, you know, and I was confident that I could get those pesky contractions to stop.  Before the bath, I called my midwife just to let her know that I was having contractions but that I was sure they’d stop.

After half an hour in the bath, I realized my contractions weren’t stopping.

I got out of the tub and began to time them.  They were two minutes apart.

Huh.  I wondered to myself if the distance between contractions mattered more or less than the length of the contractions themselves.  I pulled a pregnancy book from the shelf to look up that information and sat on my birthing ball to bounce awhile.  That’s supposed to help with pain.

Between contractions, I began to cry.  I called the midwife back and left a message.  When she returned my call, I answered, “Hello?  Just a minute.”  Then I put down the phone and moaned my way through a contraction.

She told me she’d come and check me.

I expected that the contractions would stop.  If they didn’t stop, I figured I’d be laboring for a day or two because I labored for forty-three hours with my son.

While I waited for my midwife to drive the forty-five minutes from her house to mine, I decided to tidy up.  I started upstairs with my twins’ room–I made the bed, vacuumed, picked up toys.  Every two minutes I had to stop, curl up and breathe through contractions.  Downstairs, I vacuumed and put things away . . . stopping every two minutes to hug the coffee table or kitchen counter and breathe through a contraction.  I had intended to wash the lunch dishes but by the time I got to the kitchen sink, I realized that would be impossible.  I filled up a water-bottle with water and ice and went upstairs.

By the time the midwife arrived, I had decided not to have a baby.  When contractions came, I threw myself to the ground and vocalized–which is a fancy way of saying I yelled.

I was utterly unprepared.  My birthing tub was dry.  I hadn’t even begun to fill it.  I hadn’t called any of my labor support people.  My husband was still at the pool with my kids.  But the midwife told me I was five centimeters dilated and that I was very definitely going to have a baby.

Despite this convincing evidence, I telephoned my labor support people, my mom and my sister (who was to take pictures) and told them to take their time.  I knew I’d labor for days–maybe even weeks–and didn’t want everyone sitting around waiting on me.

Two hours after the midwife arrived, my daughter arrived, all 8 pounds, 8 ounces of her.  My husband missed the birth entirely. (He came in about 10 minutes after her birth.)  My friends, my labor support people–everyone but my mom and sister–missed the entire event.

She was born just before  7 p.m., about six hours after I first noticed I was in labor, even though I denied I was in labor for four of those six hours.

So, as a baby who was born underwater on Labor Day, it’s only fitting that we celebrate her birthday every year at the pool, that same pool where her father saw a rainbow just after she was born.

Happy birthday, Baby Girl.  I will never think of Labor Day the same again.

I used to play the piano to relax and express myself.  Then I had kids.  Now I just scream and hole up in my room under the comforter I bought in North Carolina during one college summer.

I cannot tolerate macaroni and cheese or any other creamy pasta dishes.  The texture is just wrong.

I have no idea what happens to the time after midnight.  I look up at the clock and suddenly it’s 1:30 a.m. and I have no idea.  What have I been doing?

I wear socks and slippers inside my house year round.  Do you like me less now that you know that?

I would rather sleep in than go to a garage sale.  And I love garage sales.

My most recent bargain came from a thrift store.  I found one of those giant scrapbooking suitcase things, the one that costs fifty or a hundred dollars.  It cost me $7.00.  I guess it was relinquished because the handle is broken.  I figured out an alternative. Yes.  I “scrapbook.”  Go ahead, judge me.

I love to watch Jeff Lewis (“Flipping Out”) and all the “Real Housewives” (who aren’t really housewives) and Craig Ferguson.  And I really loved “NY Prep.”

My hair is driving me crazy.

A grayish sock has been hanging on my fireplace for . . . um, a long time.  I never notice it during daylight hours.

My neighbors just moved.  I never even met them.  I think they were military.  I feel kind of bad that I never met them.

I honestly cannot believe I thought I was busy in college.  I worked only sporadically, had no husband, no children and all I had to do was go to class and study.  Seriously.  That looks like an actual vacation now.  I’d pay money to do that.  Wait!  I did pay money to do that!

Now that my daughter’s birthday is coming up (the day before school–though the party is this Sunday) I remember why I wanted to give birth to her on September 10th, five days past my due date.  September 2 is a pretty inconvenient birthdate.  For moms, anyway.

I love magazines but don’t have time to read them.  So they stack up into unsteady piles.

I am in between novels which is a lot like being in a sailboat without wind or oars.  Not that I’ve been in a sailboat without wind or oars.  I would like to go sailing, however.

I would really like to be stranded in Tahiti.

We didn’t get up to Mt. Rainier and I can’t figure out how we can still go before snow falls.  I’m bummed about that.

I have a writing assignment due on September 1.  I haven’t yet started said writing assignment.  I’m a ‘do the next thing’ kind of girl and the assignment hasn’t floated to the top of the list yet.  But it’s pretty close.  Top of the list?  Prepare for Sunday’s birthday party.  And try not to die from the common cold.

I’ve been through almost half a box of the tissues I bought to send to the school.  It’s amazing how many school supplies we buy these days.

Today I yelled at my kids to stop yelling.  Which is kind of dumb.  I heard how dumb it was even while I was projecting my voice to out-shout them.

Now I am going to bed.  I hope I don’t wake up my sleeping husband.  Also?  I hope I fall immediately to sleep.  The common cold has been making sleep difficult this week.

I haven’t cooked a decent dinner all week.  I ought to be fired.

Fire me.

Please.

I have lived a pretty careful life.  As long as I can remember, I have tried to do the right thing.  I have never been interested in exploring life outside the boundaries.  I don’t see anything wrong with coloring in the lines.

While my peers were drinking and dancing (both sins in the church of my youth), I was practicing sonatas on the piano.  While other girls were sneaking out of their bedrooms to meet bad boys, I was babysitting.  While some teenagers rebelled by sticking needles into their arms, my dad caught me wearing mascara once when I performed in a trio at the county fair.

I was a good girl.  I wanted to be  good girl.  I wanted to get all the answers right, no matter what test I was taking.  I listened to all the directions.  I read the manuals.

This strategy has worked well for me.  I have no skeletons in my closet, no scars or broken bones, no incriminating photographs.  I haven’t thrown up in anyone’s car, nor have I forgotten my underpants in anyone’s living room.

As it turns out, you can’t stop the tide.  While you are tending to the moats and shaping the sandcastles of your life, waves slip in and then crash over and sometimes, wash away everything you’ve built.

If I were keeping score, I would find this incredibly unfair.  I have made good choices and yet, bad things have happened.  I have acted appropriately and all hell has broken loose.  I have done the right thing and been rewarded with the wrong results.  Tidal waves have washed out the entire shoreline of my life.

Is there a lesson to learn?  (I am the kind of girl who wants to learn the lessons.)

Not really.  Life isn’t as simple as taking a multiple choice test.  Sometimes I don’t even know the questions, let alone the answers.

Crazy things happen, even if you alphabetize your spices.

All you can do is swim parallel to the shore so the riptide doesn’t sweep you out to sea.  And wear a really big life jacket.  Sooner or later the sea will spit you back onto the shore.

My daughter’s big goal in life is to climb Mt. Everest.  Then she plans to slide back down the mountain on the seat of her pants. She told me so tonight.

She also plans to have at least four babies.  She already has a place for them in her room, but she is very concerned about the fact that she does not yet have a carseat for them.  She has started to save her toys for her babies to use someday.

Yesterday at the shoe store she picked out some very sparkly pink Sketcher sneakers.  She tried to convince me to buy some metallic gold sparkly Chuck Taylors for myself.  I resisted.  She insisted.  I did not purchase them but she laughed and laughed as she pushed the box into my hands.  I might go back and buy them just to hear her laugh some more.  I said, “What would I wear gold sparkly shoes with?” and she said, “Buy a sparkly dress!”

I took her to Wild Waves tonight but it closed at 7 p.m. instead of 8 p.m. so we were there only an hour.  Still, she glided under the water of the activity pool, flung herself from the high rock into the deep water, floated around the lazy river ride, jumped over waves.  Then on the way out, she trailed behind me.  As I approached the gate, I turned to make sure she was with me and she wasn’t.  Then I heard wailing ten feet away . . . she had “lost” me when she’d gotten distracted by someone else.  I think her biggest fear is that she will lose me–even though I have promised repeatedly that I will never leave her.

On the way home, she asked if I knew where Great-Grandma is buried.  I recently found out, so I told her I do.  Then she said she’d like to go sometime.  She told me she wants to buy flowers for the grave.

And then she chattered the whole way home until I begged her to stop talking for just a little while.  She crowds all the thoughts from my heads with all the thoughts from her head.

I hope she always wants to shop with me and talk to me until I am weary of her voice.  I hope she always laughs at my jokes.  And I hope she understands that I will never, ever, ever lose her even if she wanders away from me.

Last Friday, I stopped by a garage sale with my two youngest kids.  We came upon a bunk bed, a white metal bunk bed, and my daughter began to beg for that bunk bed.  I said, “We don’t need a bunk bed.  I’m not buying a bunk bed.”

And yet, a few hours later, it occurred to me that I should have bought the bunk bed because then I could move my daughter’s bed to my son’s room and my son’s bed to my other son’s room and then, voila!  The teenager who has been sleeping on the floor because he doesn’t like his other sleeping options (an Ikea chair that converts into a bed OR the top bunk of the bunk bed in his room) would have an actual bed upon which to slumber.

I know.  It’s confusing.  No time to explain!

So I went back to the garage sale and purchased the bunk bed.  Then I spent the next hour carting the bed home (one piece at a time in the back of my mini-van.)

That set me up for a lovely Saturday full of cleaning so that we could shift the universe and place each bed in its new location.

Let me just say that we all have too much stuff.  And so I had to move lots of stuff so we could move the beds.

Also?  I had to use tools to take apart the bunk bed to get it up the stairs.  I did so without swearing, which is good since my kids were helping me.  And we only put a smallish scrape on the wall.

The project wasn’t complete until Sunday.  And I still haven’t quite put the finishing touches on everything.

Why I create this sort of work for myself is beyond comprehension.

Next up?  Planning a birthday party in ten days and making the dreaded phone calls to invite the party guests since I don’t have addresses for everyone.  I know.  I should have already invited everyone but where did the time go?  I’ll tell you.  I squandered it moving beds from room to room, that’s where.

My head hurts.

I’ve been thinking about friends lately and wondering if I have any.  If someone threw me a surprise party (please, don’t you dare), would anyone come?  If I died, would the church be empty during my funeral?  If I had to deal with a tragedy and had to call someone, who would I call?  Who would call me?  Would anyone call me?

I have a lot of acquaintances.  I’ve managed to meet people from one coast to the other and have a lot of folks on my Christmas card list.  I’m in touch with people I’ve known since elementary school and have connected with college classmates.  I know people.  People know me.  I have Twitter followers and Facebook friends.

But I have this nagging feeling that I am out of the loop, as if everyone else is making plans to do things that don’t involve me.  Delusional?  Just the facts?  I imagine the truth is somewhere between the two.

I just think everyone is having more fun than me.  I have turned into a self-centered adolescent with age spots and a sprinkling of gray hair at my temples.  I’m feeling sorry for myself and wondering what, exactly, is wrong with me.  (Please, that’s a rhetorical question.  No answers necessary.)

What is wrong with me?

When my friends went on family trips, my family broke apart.

While everyone else was partying, I was in the school library.

When my fellow brides were getting pregnant, I was busy being infertile.

When my babies were babies, I was the oldest mom in the church nursery.

When my college friends’ children were going off to college, my youngest was starting kindergarten.

I am always out of sync, somehow.  I’m too old.  I’m too fat.  I’m too quiet.  I’m too busy.  I’m too serious.  I’m too cynical.  (My hair is driving me crazy.)  I’m too religious, not religious enough, too introverted, not introverted enough, too ambitious, not ambitious enough.  I like to be alone but I’m so lonely.

I’ve had friends in the past, friends who listened to my stories, who confided in me, who telephoned to chat while we both stood at our kitchen sinks washing dishes and sharing our random thoughts.  I miss that.

I can’t seem to get past the acquaintance stage anymore.

I’m not sure what’s wrong with me.

All I know is that if I had to round up enough people for a party, I couldn’t do it.

Not that I even like parties, but still.  It’s the idea.  If I wanted to celebrate, who would celebrate with me?  If I were to mourn, who would mourn with me?

I know that when I’m feeling blue like this, when I feel alone, the solution is to reach out, to find someone else’s need and meet it.  To be a friend to someone else.  I know.  I do.

But I kind of wish I were just born an extrovert, one of those who seems to be a human magnet for other people.  Can that be learned?  I need to learn.

I tell myself that it’s the stage of life I’m in . . . and I try not to notice that other people in this stage of life have plans and people and places to go.  Who has time, anyway, when you have four kids, a full-time job, a full-time husband (ha), three cats, a half-finished novel, ivy which will not stop creeping and laundry which does not wash itself?

Well.  If I threw a party, would you come?  If Idied, would you cry?  If I stopped whining, would you cheer?  (Don’t answer.)

I know I’m silly.  I’ll likely regret this tomorrow, but maybe now that I’ve said it, I can stop obsessing and carry on.  Cheer up.  Things could be worse.  (And then I cheered up and things got worse.  Ha ha.)

* * *

(I owe emails to people.  That proves I have friends and if they read this, they’ll wonder if they don’t count somehow . . . but, of course, I’m not talking about them . . . just about the people in my immediate orbit, the ones who I would call if I were to throw a party, not that I ever throw parties, the ones who don’t exist here, not on a deep, intimate level anyway . . . which I’m sure is my fault because I am so guarded.  I’m sure that’s it.)