I didn’t go to Cael’s soccer game in Orlando today. Oh, I’m sure he’ll be understanding and tell me that it’s OK. But I’m also pretty sure he’ll proceed to tell me how he had “the best game ever.” This is the way my world works. Under a cloud of self-imposed guilt I’ll take in the tales of sweet slide tackles, perfectly timed passes and some other soccer stuff I can’t think of the lingo for. I’ll love listening to the stories of his prowess on the field but I’ll be kicking myself under the table for having missed it.
I have that gut-wrenching feeling like I’ve besmirched my title of “mother”, although, just so you know, I hold a significant list of reasons why it wasn’t going to work for Casey and I to go... but I won’t list them. Have you ever noticed that if you recite a list like that out loud, the reasons reverberate into a hollow sounding echo and resonate a tone that resembles excuse rather than legitimate explanation? I hate that. I hate not being able to win with myself. And I hate days like today where the cute little angel sits on one shoulder yapping at me to do one thing while the little pitchfork demon guy sits on the other listing all the opposing arguments. What’s worse is that I didn’t know for sure which was the angel and which was the demon. Both made sense; both held joy and pain. If I had known which was which, the decision would have been made without a day long tug of war. But I couldn’t decipher a perfect solution and I was pretty sure that if I chose the one I thought was the angel, he would suddenly emanate this guttural sound, give a sinister laugh, rip off his little angel mask revealing his true nature and lurch at me yelling, “gotcha!”
No matter really. This was going to be a “gotcha” situation whichever way I chose. I was gonna have to face recrimination from one party or another at the end of the day; some days are like that. Winning isn’t always an option. Today, the responsibility of being me was just too much for myself, and judging from the looks of it, tomorrow isn’t gonna be any easier. Some days I just wish I had a stronger more capable me to take over for myself.
Thankfully there is a certain satisfaction in knowing that despite the discouragement of today and the expected turmoil to come, I can be sure that these days will eventually be replaced at some point by more encouraging and hopefully more decisive and satisfying ones.
For now, I’m gonna go bury my head in my feather pillow and try not to think about it. I'll be answering to the name of Scarlett.
I was thinking about the part of the movie when Scarlett said something like: "I won't think about that now. I"ll think about that tomorrow." That was right after Rhett turned his back on her and walked into the fog at the end. Whatever it was, she was either a loser or had just enough denial going that she could eek by until she gained new strength. Maybe that's what I'm doing. The gaining strength thing; hopefully not the loser part.
ReplyDeleteAs it turns out, Cael's team didn't return until 2:30 am and he was a bit disappointed that I didn't show as I had led him to believe I would. But once my explaination was made known, he seemed to understand. The expected glory game didn't seem to happen from what I could get out of him at that hour. Now, Wonder-Mom has to find a way to extract him from bed before the school day is completely over. The work is never done I tell ya, never.