The Race

It’s Friday, and I am tired.

I’ve made fifteen bagged lunches, sorted, washed and folded seven loads of laundry – a rough estimate tells me that is over 400 articles of clothing, especially because a lot of those are children’s’.  The dog is fed; I know that because she woke me up at 2:30 and 3:30 am to let me know that I had forgotten her (again!).  At least the dog doesn’t lay blame.

It’s Friday and I am tired.

Up before dawn: yoga, tea, lite-brite and journaling.  Kids awaken with their dreams or demons hanging on, spreading their demands all over me like salve on a burn.  Calm kitchen, chaotic kitchen.  To school and home again, reading, spelling, agendas, schoolwork (that we never quite get to – gulp!).  I don’t know how to fit it in.  NO, it is not that – I don’t want to fit it in.  I have my kids for such a short time – can’t the school figure out how to help my kids get their work done during the six hours and twenty-nine minutes that they have them?  I have other plans, thank you very much.  Ahhh…I miss the endless days of summer.

It’s Friday and I am tired. 

I feel plagued by obligation.  (Either that, or I am coming down with something.)  The pull of it and simultaneous resistance to it is defeating.  I am certain that there is a Buddhist saying alleging the futility of resistance.  And yet, I am pulled and stretched by duty and jostled by expectation.  But whose?  A Mother’s life remains a To-Do List not ever a To-Done List.  It is simply a race towards --- towards --- towards nothing or something, death, I suppose.  There’s no ribbon to crash through, arms raised high, sweat dripping glamorlessly from your chin, yelling at the top of your lungs, “I did it.”  No applause.

It’s Friday and I am tired.

These five days, I drove 486 kilometers.  I wonder about the mileage for Stephen Harper’s chauffeur– maybe it’s more, but not by much.  How much time does it take to drive that far, both in and out of the city?  Now with the new distracted driving law in effect, I am out of touch with and unable to organize my life while I am on the go.  Surprisingly refreshing.  Drive. Breathe. Listen. Ohm…

It’s Friday and I am tired.

The complete cessation of hormones in the last day creates an imbalance I’m not ready to manage, again.  Cyclical, like a Ferris wheel and equally as nauseating, but much less predictable.  Cycles spin and overlap in a woman’s life, in my life. Flush and flurry, rushed and ready, calm and controlled, wet and sticky, tired and touchy, loving and likeable.

It is Saturday and the radio, which awakens me, promises a warm and sunny day.  What have I got to lose?