There Is a Golden Moment

My tea is always cold by the time I finish it. I get distracted with one thing or another and soon its cold. The last sip is always so sweet though, because all the honey has thickened and sunk to the bottom.

That's my life right now. I'm so busy being busy right now, with Jason and the kids, with my friend "The Wendy Bird" and her two lost boys, tending to myself for the first time in my whole life; that I don't have time for the dirty business of the bitter tea that is my illness.

It is real. Of that I have no doubts. It is no neurological sleight of hand or psychological curse. The pain does exist, and it is constant.

But on days like today and yesterday, I can almost forget that its there. It's like an unwanted odor that lurks in the air. You become accustomed to it until you've left the room and returned.

I don't believe my pain and fatigue has mysteriously disappeared simply because I'm happy. Though I do seem better able to "rise and shine" and I'm able to do it a lot earlier than I've previously been able too. I simply believe that the noise of my illness has trouble rising through the dine of my happy home. I awake earlier and more refreshed because Jason ensures I get to bed on time. I am in less pain because I'm busy and have less time to dwell on it.

I'm drinking up the honey right now. That golden moment suspended, sweet and thick on my tongue. And I'm loving it.There is no way cold tea can compete with the sweetness of love, life and laughter.

Power Dynamics of the Patriarichal Home

I feel like I'm stuck in some power struggle I don't quite understand. Mike fought all night to sleep on my side of the bed. I've slept on the same side of the bed for 14 years and suddenly last night he started sleeping on my side of the bed and refused to budge. I slept on the couch for part of the night, tried to sleep on his side to no avail and finally wrestled what little space I could on the edge of my side. As soon as I got up to wake the kids this morning he resolutely moved back into my spot. What is going on here?

I know I'm a little OCD that this even matters but seriously - you run your life a certain way for 14 years and then someone up and changes it without explanation, without remorse.

Keira's another one. She looks me straight in the face this morning and tells me, "I have no clean clothes." Her drawers are filled with stacks of clothes we bought her at the beginning of school and here's the kicker: Some of them still had tags on them. So when I put the nice new jeans on her she throws and absolute shit fit. Yelling, screaming, kicking. You'd think I'd suggested we lobotomize her the way she was carrying on.

Ari and Donovan have chosen their sides, the quit doing homework two weeks ago and have been lying about it ever since.

I'm tired. My psychologist says the only one I can control is me but it feels like when I stop trying to control them they either give up or gang up on me. The house is trashed because no one will clean it but me and I haven't had time. Homework isn't getting done by anyone but me. And I don't even get a side of the bed anymore. And this is where I'm supposed to come up with some startling revelation that will help me deal with myself and the world around me but you know what? I got nothing.

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