“Then one day she’s satisfied
And the next I’ll find her crying
And it’s nothing she can explain…”
-The Bangles

In a few hours, I’ll finish loading my bags into the car and take off on my grand weekend adventure (dammit! Again with the “grand” – I guess I do say it. Shit. I say ‘grand’. I’m like 31 going on 90). I have to admit, I am so ready to go, and yet nervous at the same time.

I’m nervous for a few reasons, one of them being that I’m driving by myself – it’s probably only a three and a half hour drive, and I’ve done two and a half hour drives no problem, so I don’t know why I’m all nervous and goofy about it, except that I’m just that way about everything. I’m also nervous because I hate being away from my girls and it’s hard for me to leave them with someone (even my mom) for more than a night. I know parents need down time too, and hell, I know my mom and her husband are excited to flex some grandparental muscle, but it’s still hard. I don’t usually pick my oldest kiddo up from school, but I will be today to get a smidge more time with her before I go… I feel like I’m abandoning them, and that’s ridiculous. This motherhood stuff is so fraught with guilt. I wish that wasn’t the case, but it is, and I’m especially susceptible to it.

Last night I struggled to fall asleep, thinking of how much I would miss my kids, and it was just frustrating. I was feeling a bit sad and mopey about it. I was sort of upset with my husband and just wanted to wake up this morning feeling like I needed to be home, instead of like I needed to escape. I am looking forward to my time away, I really am, but part of me wished I didn’t need it quite so badly, and I was hoping that this morning, I would wake up and still feel sad about leaving.

Instead, I woke up to a sink full of dishes, a kid in a leaky soggy Pullup (those things are not made for night use – there’s no way they can hold enough pee), my older daughter overslept and I had to rush her through her morning things (get dressed, eat breakfast, homework) all the while packing her lunch because my husband was practicing for his spot on the Olympic Standing There team. Meanwhile, my stepson was eating breakfast and put the plastic disposable cup he was using (yes, bad for the planet, I know I know – why the hell do I have plastic disposable cups?!) in the sink, as if I was going to WASH IT and reuse it? I’m all for reduce, reuse, recycle, but I’ll be damned if I’m washing a plastic cup when I have 101 glasses and cups in the cupboard already. I have been so swamped today trying to get things ready to go, that I have barely had time to pick things up around the house – this means that when I return home, it will look just as bad if not worse.

Faaaaaaaaaantastic.

At $3.50-something a gallon, I’ll be driving nearly 400 miles today to get away from my life and to catch up with some friends and to maybe relax and remember myself a bit. I didn’t want to be so excited to get away from my life, but so help me, I am.