The job of a mother is often a thankless one.
It is 1:13 a.m. Again. I’m tired and should be in bed. Tomorrow is the proverbial school day. Standing at my kitchen counter I just reflexively eat yet another chocolate truffle . Great… like I need sugar at 1 a.m. Instead of getting some much needed rest, I am scribbling this blog. Why now? Because I’m scared if I don’t do it now, my time tomorrow will be eaten up by the million and one things I have to do on a Monday.
I was away from home last week working in Chicago. Chicago, by the way, I am convinced is not really a city. In actuality, it is a portal to purgatory….for only a way station between heaven and hell could possibly explain Chicago weather last week. Digressing for a moment, I arrived last Sunday to a gorgeous, sunny, warm summer day of 72 degrees. Stripping down to my jeans and t-shirt, I carried my coat and sweater as I aimlessly strolled through a neighboring park. Lovely, absolutely lovely. That was Sunday. Monday…it snowed!!!! All cussing day, it snowed. Come on! I am telling you – Chicago……… doorway to purgatory.
Anyway…I was in Chicago working on that cold, wet snowy Monday which also happened to be my birthday. My birthday pickup time that morning was 4:42 a.m. and I worked until 9:48 p.m. that night. Needless to say my birthday was a cold, blistery, exhilarating yet exhausting blur. No complaints as I happen to believe that working passionately at something I love is a perfectly lovely way to spend my birthday. I was really cool with it. I was, however, too busy last week to write my birthday blog but had every intention of doing so today. And here’s the thankless motherhood part. 
My child has one of those damn California Mission projects due on Friday. I left really specific instructions with her Grandmother and my helper about what had to get done. Some of it was done but most of it was not!!! My child is miles away from completion…MILES!!! After assessing her progress this evening and agreeing to help her build the Mission Day Alcala in San Diego which, by the way, has to be an almost exact replica of the mission, my daughter has chosen to do hers in Lego. I repeat, LEGOS! After sifting and picking out all the white legos I could find in the ever increasing vacuum clogging lego bin, I knew I was in trouble when. an hour in I declared out loud , “I’m gonna need a lot more hormone cream to get me through this one.” I could feel my patience along with my estrogen literally draining out of me.
I am now down a dark rabbit hole with this Lego shit. Oh my God! I am both oddly addicted to the building while incredibly frustrated because ,just as you get a side built, touch one block and the cussing wall comes tumbling down. It is a grand exercise in creativity and extraordinary futility in equal share. I think I’m in trouble here. Then there’s the, “shouldn’t she be doing this all by herself?” voice in my head. “Stop helping her…If she fails…she fails!! It will teach her to be more responsible with her time 
management!! “But when I get that desperate doe-eyed, “Mommy I really need your help,” I melt. And here I am, all up in this shit!! When what I really want to be doing is writing “my” birthday blog. I have possible pithy things to say. I have reflected on this, my time on the earth thus far. I have some “life” observation I’d like to share…. Blah, blah, blah. Not gonna happen. Instead it’s all about the Mission de Alcaca built of Legos.
My insides are screaming, “I want me time. I want my hijacked time back. Me time. Me, me, me! Remember me? Me!!!!!!! But, no. Come tomorrow,between paying bills, conference calls, a business lunch, PR dinner and calling the dentist to get my cracked tooth fixed, I will somehow find the time to get to a cussing Lego store because after tonight I now know exactly what Legos are needed. I know what Legos we do not have to build the 5 bell towers, the blacksmith shop, the church steeple, the grassy knoll and flower beds and the Indians that have to be somehow casually placed among the Mission. The Indians, who by the way, were slaughtered and died of disease in most of these Missions. But again I digress. My assignment of buying of the prescribed legos cannot be explained away to someone and therefore cannot be delegated. It is mine.
Someday I will look back at this moment and smile knowing that I have done exactly what I have set out to do. Be the best Mom I am capable of being which means I am here. I cussing show up for my child: PTA, car pool, freezing cold morning track meets behind God’s back, all of it. All the day to day minutiae that goes into the loving service to our children. I put in the time because, at the end of the day there is no substitute for this… time. So I walk this talk to the best of my ability, forsaking my own needs and desires because, let’s face it, that is just part of the gig…but once in a while – like tonight -I sit in poignant remembrance of a time when all I thought about was…me.
I’m just plain tired tonight. Tired and anxious and a little freaked out that I am tired and anxious and not asleep…and morning is coming really soon….what am I gonna do???I’m tired…. I’m a little bit freaked out….and I don’t wanna wake up tired!!! AGAIN!!!! Blah, blah, blah…..and on and on and on….
Stop.
Breathe.
Stop. Just be here, Lorraine.
Stop. Let all this stuff go.
Just be here now. And go the cuss to bed. You’re really tired.
This will all be solved with sleep.
It’s actually been a lovely day. Go the cuss to sleep. And I bet you anything, tomorrow will be Lovely too.
I did. And it was.
