Whew...

Week one of solo parenting:

3 different babysitters for Finn, for 3 different nights/weekend days of work;
I-don't-know-how-many dvds conned out of said babysitters;
1 night of working with Finn, at auditions;
3 extra days of Extended Day Care for Finn at school;
at least 3 crying, angry, sad times while there;
at least 3 okay times;
maybe 1 or 2 actual happy times;
3 school lunches (all of them eaten, joyfully);
1 sobbing fit of my own in the car, in the middle of a particularly tough day;
2 after-school visits to the blissfully quiet, empty, serene Mission Trails Park;
a couple of work crises;
1 bad haircut (Finn's, not mine);
too many calls with Kenny to count.

How do people do this?

I guess things become a routine. I guess things get easier, or one gets used to the difficulty. At the end of the day yesterday, I had never been so exhausted.

Then last night I actually slept, well, and stayed in bed dozing and sleeping from Finn's 7:15am wake-up through his early morning playing and 1 dvd until 9:00 Praise-the-Lord am.

And today I didn't officially have to work, and I was rested, and Finn was rested, and we went at his pace, and we went nowhere near school, and we went to dance class together, and then he spent 90+ minutes playing in a park while I got to talk to my sister on the phone, and we came home and ate lunch, and we read some books, and he watched his favorite movie Ratatouille while I managed to do a load of laundry AND check work email AND write part of a grant.

Today was a very good day.

Kenny comes home October 30. I can't really think that far ahead, or I might die. Life at the moment is a strange balance of:

"Think ahead. Make a list. Write down everything. Check off one thing. Move on. Check off another...."

and

"Stop. Breathe. Be. Here. Now."

Tomorrow there is no schedule. Thank you, God. There are tasks - Salvation Army and the 99cent store to shop for 2 chairs and the last few props for the set for the tour, get the house in order for the week, maybe even surprise myself and make a meal or lunch or something AHEAD OF TIME.

Who am I?

Work is just plain hard work right now. It's probably two of the worst weeks of my work-year for Kenny to be gone. But it is what it is, and he is well. Working hard, earning money, in his beloved gray, calm, green Seattle. He stays in an aerie of a room, with windows that look on a gray lake and green trees and nothing (not a single car alarm, not a boombox, not a tire screech, not a circling helicopter) can be heard. He is blissful. Lonely, missing us, but happy to be where he is.

And my work is work. Everyone gets grumpy when a show gets toward tech, and we have a touring show heading towards tech, and a set with fabric that shrank while painting, and a van to rent, and blah blah blah. And there are still shows to be booked, and income is down, and grants are due, and there's another show to program and cast, OH, and we had auditions for FOUR different plays this week, and I'm late on writing contracts for the entire artistic staff, and there's a special event to worry about, and school residencies to program, and school residencies to sell, and I don't have to do all of the work but I have do a lot of it, and everyone else does too, and so everyone is cranky, and tired, and and and.

And I'm doing my part in 2 to 3 hour bursts in between drives to and from Finn's school and in between breakfast, lunch, and dinner prep, and trying to not be the yelling, mad, "no-one-wants-to-be-her" mother.

And Kenny will be home in 12 days. Which I prefer to think of as a week, and a little bit. Because that's what it is, really. He left early in the morning last Sunday, and we made it to here, Saturday night. So now all we have to do is that same week one more time! And then we have to do a few more days. Which will be easy!

I pray.






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Single parenting... Survival... Holy crap.

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I have an active imagination. Ever since I was small, I have imagined terror and trouble, just to see what I would do...

8 years old, in church: "If TIGERS escape and come in here, in church, how will I escape? Could I climb up the altar? Could I then jump to the lights? Could I hang there until rescue came?"

Another scenario, albeit a similar one: "If a FLOOD came into church, how will I escape?" etc....

Sometimes even moral implications and consequences would enter my pondering:

"What will happen to my family? Will I save them? Will I even try? Or will I just scramble to my own safety?"

It would while the hours of mass away. Which was essential, considering I went to mass six days a week.

My penchant for bad fantasies has stayed with me all my life. I once read an interview with Mary Steenburgen, where she said she used to think she was insane, because she daydreamed about horrible things happening to her and her family. Then, when she was studying Meisner (an acting technique), she realized she was just an actor.

Lately, since I got married, my fantasies have primarily been about my husband leaving my life. Never, ever my son leaving my life - there I do not wander. Ever. Some places are unimaginable, even for bad fantasy time.

But my husband - he leaves a number of ways. Sometimes he dies. A pleasant, peaceful death, that's over before he or anyone knows it. Sometimes he just disappears. Sometimes I leave him.

No matter how he goes, the fantasy is pretty much the same - I grieve and grow wise through my grieving, maybe I even write a book about it, and I become a noble, wise, spunky single parent. I am Finn's friend, his mommy and his daddy. Somehow, inexplicably, I am 35 again. We explore the world, I make lots of money (somehow), I buy a little home for us (huh?), and eventually I meet my soulmate who becomes the best second dad for Finn that you could ever imagine - a sweet, calm, quiet, giving, smart, generous, patient, saintly kind-of-fellow, a guy who's a world away in temperament from my current bipolar bear.

and I drift off to sleep thinking - "Yeah. I will survive...hey, hey..." as Gloria Gaynor echoes in my head.

And now - NOW. Oh Good Lord, NOW - I am going to get to actually practice.

My husband is leaving.

Not for good, and not for bad. Actually - let me be clear with my language.

He is leaving FOR GOOD. He's leaving to go back to Seattle to work with old friends, and make a lot of money for us, his family, and regain a bit of his soul, hopefully. And then he is coming back here, to us, in San Diego. (note - I did not say "home." Since none of us are at all sure where that is.)

He is coming back. That's the plan. After a MONTH. FOUR WEEKS.

I work. I work full-time, at a job that will grow increasingly demanding over the next four weeks. There are many graces - we are an office of women, half of us mothers, and I am the boss of me. There is no one to hover or disapprove. I can bring Finn, I can leave early to get him from daycare, I can do many things -

and I have daycare, thankfully, at Finn's beloved preschool. I don't know if he'll love daycare as much as school, but it's in the same place - that has to count for something in his affections. I hope.

And I can ask for babysitting. I have one person I can ask. Maybe I'll find more.

It's just that I will be the ONE. I will be the ONE who drives him to school, goes to work, then picks him up from school; the ONE who takes him grocery shopping to the park and on errands and the ONE who makes his breakfast and dinner and the ONE who brushes his teeth and puts him to bed - I will be the ONE doing this, while at work I will be the ONE artistic directing the whole shebang.

I am terrified. I suspect that I will not be noble, or wise. I'm pretty certain that I will not wake up and find myself 35 again. I'm afraid of the new map of furrows that will arise on my already weary face. And I know, in my heart, that I may shriek more than I laugh.

Now, without being the ONE, I barely keep my head above water. I paddle along, breathing hard, until I fall into bed at night. How will I paddle for two?

My only consolation is that I will be alone, after Finn goes to sleep. I will not have my husband here to help (him helping me) - but I will also not have my husband here to help (me helping him). I'll be alone - and that may be a blessing. His troubles brew large, much of the time. He takes up a lot of psychic space, my bipolar bear.

So maybe the respite from his worries will compensate, a bit, for being Finn's ONE.

Or maybe I'll just die.

Mary Steenburgen would understand.