Flying solo.

I'm playing hooky today. For the first time in a long time ("so long ago I can't remember when" to borrow a line from Jakob Dylan) I am in my house, by myself. That's right, no kid, no husband, just me. It's heaven. I actually pretended to go to work today just to throw Lovey off. I got up, got dressed (no shower though), made coffee, ate breakfast, and even went so far as to put my school bag in the car along with her to take her to school. All so that she wouldn't know I was home. She's had a rally cry of "No mommy work" for a few weeks now, so I definitely didn't want her to get any ideas.

I took the day off not because I'm sick, but because I'm exhausted. Truth be told, I'm cooking another person right now. The new bambino should arrive sometime around mid-April and he/she has been making me very tired. I just needed a day to relax, so I took it. Besides baby cooking, I'm also a full-time mom, a full-time wife, a full-time educator, and a full-time keeper of the house. It's a full-time plate. It's inevitable that at one point or another something will not get done, or not get done well. To be honest, at this point I'm so tired that I don't feel like anything is getting done well. My house is a mess, my kid has been watching too much TV lately, my poor husband definitely feels neglected, and my work ethic has reached an all time low. That could be because I hate my current position, but more on that another time. I was hoping a battery recharge would get me back on track.

Driving back home after dropping Lovey off, I was thinking about how my life would be different if it was just me. No husband, no kid. Don't get me wrong, I love my family. So much so, that sometimes it seems like a fairy tale. After all, Honey was one of the biggest crushes I've ever had and I got to marry him. And then we made a beautiful baby (make that two). How lucky can one girl get? But I'm sure I'm not the only woman who questions what life would be like if it all went away. I fantasize about other jobs: chef, writer, blogger, anything other than the mundane day to day. In the car my current "new life" fantasy was about driving cross country and stopping for small jobs to earn cash and meeting new people and making new friends.

And then I realized, it's just another sign telling me that I need to work harder to make me a priority. It seems to be the resounding theme of this blog, maybe I should've called it "Me Time". But you know what? This is the life I chose. This is the life I know I wanted. This is just one path down a very long journey. Right now the focus isn't on me, and it shouldn't be. It should be on my kid(s) and my husband, and my home. Less so on my job, but that's just a means to an end. Soon enough, I'll have independent kids who say things like "Mom, why are you always here?" instead of "No mommy work" and I'll have time to focus on me again. Or at least more time to clean the house. In the meantime, I'll have to remember to pretend to go to work every now and again to get the house to myself.