Busy Valentine

SMV #11: Busy Valentine

My single parent consiglilere who is very wise-as we know; that’s the point of a consigliere-said that it’s important to figure out when you are super crisp and can’t handle the simplest of parenting tasks.

And, boy, was I crisp.

I was flat out for so long! I was cranking and busy for so long, I didn’t realize how much I needed a break.

The really beautiful thing about being busy and having a million (important) things to do, that cannot be dropped, is that when you DO get a break, and you have gotten all the work done: an organized closet, resumés sent, kindergarten applications in, syllabus and homework schedule written and delivered, and when you have been invited up and go to your friend’s country house, located in…Paradise, the not-being-busy feeling is nothing short of Joy.

The feelings of impending heaven happened even before I arrived at J’s house.  When I was well shy of the city, I inadvertently rolled down the window since it was a balmy evening and the sun was out after torrential and surprising weeks of rain. And-wow!- what an eye-opener! It smelled like new grass, wet leaves, warm flowers. I was smelling spring in the country and I started to vibrate. (With happiness, with excitement, with a calm, with relief.) Already, even though I was driving(normally my least favorite, most stressful thing I do) I was in a non-busy state, so senses are heightened.

I don’t really understand why any single, committed parents would take any hard core drugs because when you are so ITT- ATT: “In The Thick All The Time” of child-rearing, when you get a break and you get to do things alone, it feels to me like I am on one of those happy, happy, joy drugs.  Like Ecstasy. Note: I have never tried X and now I have even less curiosity about it. Seriously, being in the parenting trenches and then, doing anything alone and not on a time frame I am so over the moon I have to make sure I don’t embarrass myself.

I remember when I went to New York City alone for a few days for the first time after I was a mother and just taking the subway and seeing and realizing I didn’t have to navigate the turn-style and the tricky stairs with a stroller, brought tears of joy to my eyes.