My birthday is tomorrow, the 10th, but as I'm posting this so late at night, well, by the time you read it, it most certainly WILL be my birthday.
I can't really put up a birthday post on the 10th because that's my Hopeful Parents posting day, so all you will find on the 10th is my jumper post leading you to read me on the Hopeful Parents site. (Note to self: WRITE the damn HP post already, OK?)
And so I am posting though I don't have much to say. Or rather I have so much to say that it is an amorphous swirl in my brain, not coalescing into anything near brilliance anytime soon. And so I'm breaking all the rules here. Handing you a ruminating ramble today. Because it's (nearly) my birthday and I can do what I want to, right?
I am SUPPOSED to put up my fabu BlogHer11 recap post by today, or certainly tomorrow (not gonna happen) and I have also been told it is imperative to have something really wonderful, a strong post I'd prepared in advance to slap up on the old blog to wow folks that I met at the conference who are coming by to visit for the first time (also, clearly not happening).
What I am, mostly, right now, is a (by the time you're reading tihs) 51 year-old woman who is tired. Really really tired. Bone weary tired.
The BlogHer conference was wonderful and strange and so different from my day-to-day existance that now that I'm back in the thick of things it feels like a dream. One of those powerful dreams you mull over the next day in your waking state and want to write down the details of upon awakening so as not to lose the lessons therein; but a dream, nonetheless.
For four days I didn't have to think about what other people were wearing or eating or their bathroom habits. OK, maybe I had to THINK about it, as I did have 2 (wonderful) roommates who DID want me to eat with them and consult on outfits and we DID have to negotiate our showers so as to all be able to be on time. But I wasn't RESPONSIBLE for any of that for anyone but me.
So for four days I was off the hook of mothering responsibilities. And It. Was. Glorious. I could have been at the worst conference in the world, and I would have still been in heaven. But instead I was at a pretty terrific one. With some great people. In San Diego. California. On the West Coast. For the first time in nine years.
I love being a mother. I wouldn't trade that job in for anything. But it IS relentless and wearing me out sometimes. Especially the whole autism thing. I needed a break. And I didn't know how much I needed a break until I had one.
The problem is, this was a very busy, very intense break. And while it cleared my mind, it was four days of WORK in so many ways. Four days of being "on" all the time.
And so I came back needing a bit of rest, some down time, and instead found myself thrown back into full time mothering, as Ethan was already DONE with camp, and Jake's summer school ended with a half day today. And there is now a MONTH before the kids go back to school.
Yes, I said a month, because New York City has not fallen into lockstep with most of the rest of the nation and started sometime in August. A few days after Labor day it is then.
We'll be making the most of it, having fun in the city, trying to escape as often as we can. But still, looking down the barrel of a whole month is daunting. Especially when the kids don't get along. And they don't.
But I don't want to end this post on a whine, on a complaint, on the downside.
So I will say this: 51 years on this planet and most days I am still happy to greet the new day, eager to discover what it has in store for me.
I want my life to be like the Tardis, bigger on the inside, with ever expanding rooms for whatever I need. Like in one of those wonderful dreams where you go through a passageway to
discover a whole new wing in your apartment you hadn't know existed
before.
Some doors potentially opened at this conference, and I am looking forward to stepping through, walking into new territory, reclaiming parts of myself that are more than "just" Mom.
Because 51 is not too old to learn new tricks and I've got years ahead of me (hopefully) to dance on into. Anybody want to Rumba?
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