Mental notes

Nathan and I finally told Autumn I was going to be gone for a few days later this week. It wasn’t that we were keeping my trip to Chicago from her, but we, or at least I, hadn’t yet thought about the need to tell her. The last time I ventured out on a road trip by myself was back in 2003 and I was not a mother then. I simply got in the car, waved goodbye to Nathan and the dog and took off for a week-long stay at a writing workshop in Iowa. I missed them terribly of course (Nathan more so than the dog), but I didn’t feel any of the anxiety I’m feeling now.

It all started with the morbid, yet not uncommon, question of “what if I don’t come back?” There’s no reason to believe I won’t come back. Chicago is only a 300-mile round trip of mostly open freeway, so what’s the deal?

The deal is I am prone to neuroses just like everyone else, and when my mind starts heading in that direction, the mental inertia takes over and I just keep on going.

What about my blog? Should I give Nathan the password to my blog in case I don’t come back and he needs to let people know why I’m not posting? Will I jinx myself and ensure I won’t come back if I do give Nathan the password to my blog? What about my journals? Should I let him know it’s okay to read the journals as long as he keeps in mind the context in which they were written and that I was a completely different kind of crazy back in the ‘90s? Does he even know where to find the passwords to our bank accounts and credit cards? Does he know that every day I feel lucky to have found him? Should I write a letter to Autumn letting her know she has shown me a kind of love I never thought possible and that I really do think she’s a good little girl even though I tend to yell when I get frustrated or tired which happens to be a lot lately? Nathan doesn’t know which parts of The Lorax Autumn likes to recite by memory, so maybe I should go over that with him and he really really needs to learn how to secure a proper ponytail regardless of whether or not I come back Sunday night. And should I be feeling like a shitheel because my thoughts started with the blog and ended with my family and not the other way around? Oh hell…

And I’m sure right about now Amy, my travel buddy and roomie for the weekend, is questioning whether or not she’ll be able to survive the weekend with me.

Autumn seems to be okay with the prospect of me leaving, mostly because she thinks she’s the one who’s going on a trip and that I will be the one left behind. I imagine at some point I’ll have to set her straight, but once I drop her off at school on Thursday I won’t see her again until sometime Sunday night or possibly even Monday morning. In spite of the near constant tantrums, the attitude and the whining, the thought of being away from her for four days seems almost painful.

Almost.

Because last night was one of those nights that left me thinking Thursday can’t get here fast enough. Of course once I’m in Chicago I have the feeling the best part of the trip will be the part when I pull back into my own driveway again. That’s usually how it goes.

Tagged as: BlogHer, mortality