• Previous posts

  • Aging is for the weak, and everyone else
  • More short cuts
  • Smol Ketchups
  • What’s the opposite of green juice and deep breathing
  • Living through it all online
  • The Change
  • 18
  • Ok but ALSO:
  • Midlife POV
  • Influence and Dooce
  • Horse therapy
  • You can’t go home again
  • Obsolescence
  • Before and after
  • A cringe confession on friendship

Archives from 2002-2006

When will I start taking classes again? I don’t know. I know it’s not the right time, right now. If I had schoolwork looming over my head each day I’d feel like no matter what I was doing, I wasn’t getting enough done. I’d be constantly tempted to stash the kids in front of the TV so I could finish an assignment or read a quick chapter or print a report or whatever it was. I battle that feeling enough as is with my freelance work, I don’t want to tip the scales any more than they already are. God, I don’t even know if the things I was interested in studying are the things I’m still interested in pursuing as a career.

When will I start sitting down and writing something of substance, maybe even the book I’ve long believed/hoped I would write? I don’t know. I produce 70+ billable articles a month, it leaves me with little desire to spend even more time tapping away at the keyboard. Even though I miss creating words for pleasure.

When will we follow through that dream of living in Oregon? Oh, I don’t know, I don’t know. We’re more entrenched than ever right now, no plans to put the house back on the market any time soon. I never really thought we’d still be here for our kids to start school, but this month I sign Riley up for kindergarten. It’ll be fall before we know it.

I feel like I’m in a sort of holding pattern, but I don’t know what change I’m waiting for. For the kids to start school? For more money, more time, more convenience—as though these things are guaranteed? As though I haven’t learned time and time again that success comes from making my own change?

Thing seem cloudy, these days. Not sad; obscured. I don’t know if I should be content with my today, or trying harder to aim into tomorrow.

We arrived at the kids’ first swimming lesson yesterday and the instant we entered the indoor pool area I remembered a critical piece of information about swimming lessons: the person not submerging themselves in water should dress appropriately for the sweltering air temperature. Which is to say, jeans and a sweatshirt are a bad idea.

Dylan, who until that very moment had been chattering nonstop about how excited he was for swimming, burst into tears at the sight of the sweet-faced young instructor. Our previous swim teacher had simply ferried Riley through the water, tears and all, distracting him with floating toys, but this girl blinked at Dylan’s sniveling downturned lip and informed me she didn’t think it was a good idea to push things.

There he sat on the edge of the pool the entire half hour while she interacted with the three other small children. Once or twice she approached him, he shook his head, and she shrugged and left. Soon he forgot what he was upset about and began kicking happily, then reaching down to splash the water. I stared holes through his back while sweat coursed down my forehead, waiting for the inevitable moment when he would fall in, and so at least it wasn’t much of a surprise when he eventually did and I was able to quickly race forward and snag one fish-slippery arm in order to haul him out as he bobbed back toward the surface.

The instructor raised her eyebrows sympathetically at me, then turned back to the other kids.

Eventually it was Riley’s turn for his lesson and I spent most of the time attempting to pull dry clothes onto Dylan, wondering just what sort of physics transformation takes place with children where their damp skin becomes like Superglue to fabric, then I had to keep Dylan away from the edge of the pool while we waited for Riley, then I helped stuff Riley into his own clothes, then I drove home where I staggered across the doorway and collapsed in a pool of sweat on the living room floor while the boys started running from one of the house to the other shouting “PSHEW! PSHEW! PSHEW!”

So obviously, my big plan for helping the kids siphon off some pent-up energy through swimming is going really really well. I don’t even know what to do now because jesus, I don’t want to spend two afternoons a week poised in a breathless, heart-hammering crouch by the edge of the pool, ready to save the toddler from drowning. I sort of want to tell this girl to nut up and just grab my reluctant whiny-ass kid because he’ll be FINE IN TWO MINUTES IF SHE DOES, but then again, I suppose it’s not technically in their job description to deal with reluctant whiny-ass kids.

Should I just get in the water with him next time, if he withdraws from her again? Sidle over and hiss death threats into his perfect shell-pink ear? Say fuck it and give up on lessons for him right now?

Trouble:

Mr. Easy-Peasy, comparatively speaking:

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