As my coffee cup was overflowing onto the countertop Charlotte was yelling for me from her new bedroom. I tripped over my shoes and stepped on Barbie’s head as I scrambled to her bed. She wanted to pick out which underwear to put on and decided to go with the bright pink ones “cause these ones match my Princess dress…” after she got dressed she headed for her table and chairs and started coloring. I frowned as I started cleaning up the precious wasted coffee, I should probably cut back…my pee smells like French roast.
I just need no one to talk to me for an hour, or maybe two hours…or maybe a whole day. The sound of talking or someone talking to me or me talking… just sound of any kind in general makes me anxious. I woke up annoyed by the sound of the wind and knew anything other than quiet was going to be intolerable today.
I sat down on the couch and watched Charlotte meticulously placing her new Cinderella stickers on some yellow construction paper. I started daydreaming about sitting by myself- surrounded by the sour air of this new apartment. I thought about sitting on the damp ground at the edge of the river where Charlotte likes to throw rocks at the Geese and then pretend like it was an accident. Only this time I would be by myself…myself, me, me, I. Selfish?
“Mommy I NEED my stamps”, Charlotte proclaimed. I got up and started shuffling through her canvas box of art supplies…she then insisted I sit with her, so we sat and she stamped and I spaced out.
I kept thinking about work and how it was stressing me out, I was thinking about an argument I had the night before. But then I started thinking about how lucky I was to have what I do, my daughter and him and my apartment and my new car but then it crept into my mind that now all the things that I have cost more so maybe that was why today was not going to be a good day-because I kept thinking about money.
I kept thinking how dependent I’d become on the people in my life, how now I needed my job….I needed a can opener and a new bed and when I didn’t have those things someone else got them for me and then I realized how much I needed them- so now I'm needy. Great.
It was only 9 am now and we had been up for a couple hours. After we ate our scrambled eggs we had an orange and I kept changing my mind about whether or not to go church. I hate leaving her in Sunday School but she talks and dances and kicks the persons chair in front of us if she goes to “Big Girl church” so I decided we would go to my parents house for the afternoon. Charlotte wore her princess dress and red sparkly high-heels on the car ride. She wants to listen to song 6 and song 8 and then Taylor Swift but I think I lost that CD a month ago….so we switched to the radio, I set the cruise and we headed to Burbank.
Charlotte ran out of the car and into the house. She immediately demanded that my dad play Wizard of Oz with her. My mom was on the couch and I sat down at the computer.
I Googled "restlessness", and read How to Cure Neurasthenia- Damn you Google....
Then I Googled "the Bible" ....then I read some stuff I didn't understand.
So then I googled " The Bible and restlessness" and then I read Romans 14, then I decided I was going to church tonight.
I also decided that maybe what I really needed wasn't anything in the aforementioned.
