I'm just your average, everyday, divorced 38 year old girl -- overweight, tragically unhip,
and trying to make a life for myself. I live with two furry beasts, Dave and Abby, whose
feline mission in life is to choke me with their fur. Nothing special.
Saturday morning. I'm going to see my boy today. Yes, after nearly three weeks' absence, I'm going to watch Alcott bowl this morning. And, of course, we will grab Starbucks on the way home. Yippee, yahoo, wooowheee, I can't wait to see him!
Do you know what I realized while I was talking to my Voices supervisor this week? Alcott's going to be fifteen years old this year. Omigosh, that's like almost sixteen and you can drive at sixteen here in California. Nononononononono, I'm not ready for this! He can't be getting older, he just can't. Intellectually, I'm making plans for his departure to college, trying to figure out where I'm going to find scholarships to pay for $120,000 (4.5 years of out-of-state tuition at the university he's in love with)...but it only just hit me that it will mean he'll be gone and I won't see him except the four or five trips a year I make back there to see him. (What? Do you think four or five trips a year is excessive? Hey, at least I'm not thinking about moving there! Wait, I think one of our competitors has an office there...) What am I going to do when it's three months between visits instead of just three weeks? *must be the grown up, must be the grown up* OK, I've got nothing, but I do have three and a half years to figure it out!
*puts on my "I'll think about that tomorrow" hat*
He's still a little boy for now and I'm going to watch him bowl, so I shall speak at all of you later.
Thursday morning. I had to think about which day of the week it is and that saddens me. My boss asked me that question a few nights ago and I honestly couldn't tell him without looking at the calendar. Sad.
Things at work are so busy. I know I've said that before and we are certainly very busy every January, but it hasn't been like this in at least four years. I had to beg and cajole a team member to go down to a product launch celebration because she was convinced that, if she just didn't get up from her computer, she could power out another product or will her QA tester to stop sending defects. In the end, I told her she only had to stay down in the courtyard long enough to have some snacky food and a glass or bottle of her favorite alcoholic beverage. I don't know for sure but I think I saw her down there when the raffle started, too - good for her! (Of course, she was still at her desk working when I left at 7:30, but at least she got away for a little while.)
Even when I'm not there, I'm thinking about being there. I've got things I need to do in my "real" life - change my oil (I'm nearly up to 15,000 miles and never got my 10,000 mile service), get the dent in my front bumper fixed (since July), go over to the home store to get them to move my new bi-fold laundry doors from receiving to the lumber yard (so that they can cut them down to the size I need), get a dumpster delivered to the condo so that I can push my old treadmill and couch into it - and the most important of those is seeing Alcott. It's been over two weeks now since I've seen him and I've not gone that long since I met him, just over a year ago. And I miss him so much but it's just crazy and, even when I'm not at work, I'm stressed out about work. I can't just call up 15 minutes before I want to pick him up, either, I have to give adequate warning, which would require doing something other than work during the week. Nothing happens anymore during the week except work. Heck, I even forgot about a Junior League meeting this week and that just isn't like me.
In any case, Genevieve, my co-CASA, left me a message yesterday asking me to pass along an important piece of info to Alcott's foster family, so I did. Before I could even get out everything I needed to say, I could hear him in the background, his voice muffled enough that I couldn't make out his words. I asked his foster mom what he'd said and she told me, "He wants to know when he's going to get Starbucks again." Huge gulp. Hot, silent tears right there in my office. That's our special "thing", you see: we always do Starbucks together. Oh, God, he misses me, too. I almost can't breathe with the pain. I put everything I have into a laugh and tell her to tell him that it will be soon and that I'm missing my Starbucks, too.
I never thought he'd miss me. Heck, I didn't even think he'd notice I hadn't been around. TCB told me, last weekend, that I ought to be doing something with the kids and I told him that I was tired and that I hadn't made plans in advance so I couldn't. (Yes, he did mention that to me as I was crying on the phone with him last night!) But my boy wants to see me! And Genevieve told me, in her phone message, that the other kids want to see me, too. If you'd told me this time last year that I'd get so attached that two weeks' absence would put splintery cracks in my heart, I'd never have believed you, but they've twined their hands into the yarn that holds my world together and my life is irretrievably changed for the better.
Monday afternoon. Quick post because TCB and I are about to go out to the home improvement store to pick up a few supplies for a project he's working on here at my condo.
I think I'll be able to "fix" my evening eating problems (go to bed early) and now I'm focusing most of my energy on figuring out what to do about weekends. Well, more specifically, what to do about eating with TCB. I have to be able to say, "I don't want to eat at a sit-down restaurant because it's too tough for me to make good choices when faces with so many delicious, not-good choices," and not feel guilty about it. Perhaps I should even let TCB know that I'll bring my own healthy, prepared meals when I come over on weekends and that I won't be going out to eat (at least for a few weeks). I still need to toss this around a little, so there will be more of this later.
I also want to thank Alda for her nomination of me for a BoB Award. Last year when I was nominated, I felt really ambivalent about my nomination and, while I'm still not comfortable with the concept of competing against other, really fabulous sites, I am unequivocally proud to be in such august company. I've added some of the best of the category to my blogroll and encourage you to go over to the awards site to explore the entire list, then vote every day between now and the end of the month for those you find most worthy of your time and attention. (Also, please go over to Genuine's blog and tell him thank you for putting together such a nice award and for all of his efforts thereto.)
