Learning Alone

This is a week without my kiddo. This week, he's with his dad and I'm finding myself fairly lousy at self-directing.

Of course I have things I could be doing and I'd likely feel better about the world in general if I immersed myself in a project... but I find myself standing at the kitchen sink developing one hell of a thousand yard stare.

I leave his music on at night, the CD he has listened to for the last 5 (?) years as a constant lullaby set on repeat. The album is Norah Jones' "Feels Like Home." It doesn't make me feel better, but it does make me feel less non-existent. There's focus in his not being here, even if it is the gravitational pull of the void surrounding a singularity.

The Riot Grrl in me is backstage angry. In fact, she is furious that I let myself be snagged into housewife/mom role in the first place. I really wish that part of me would cease to exist for a few more years. She's the one, more than any other outside person, who tells me, "I told you so!! I told you never to get married, never to have offspring! You stupid GIRL!"

Yeah, she pisses me off. She's perpetually 19 in her thinking. So passionate, so damned ignorant, so unwise and so cruel at eight p.m. as I'm brushing my teeth alone.

I push the little button on my son's toothbrush. It times for one minute, flashing and red like a heartbeat. I don't brush for one minute. I stand there, holding the toothbrush with the super soft bristles and cool grip, staring far into it with what must appear to be bewilderment. I stand there, chilly in the bathroom because I leave the heat on low when he's not here (save money somehow some way always save), for more than the pulsing minute.  It shuts off, still and silent and garishly inanimate and I hold it until I return to myself. I might brush my teeth. I might not. Some days are better than others.

Tomorrow, I might thrive in my alone. Tonight, I just feel dumb and numb. I wonder if it ever gets any less disturbing.