All in My Head

I'm having the odd experience of writing posts in my mind, but never quite getting them onto the page. 

My cousin from Virginia is in town for our college reunion, her twenty-fifth and my thirtieth. She going to the dinners and events and catching up with friends. I'm taking a pass. But since she's staying with us, I'll have to play host to her friends all the same. But for my rundown house, it's not too stressful. This cousin is like a sister.

I'm also playing host to an aunt and uncle who are staying in my mom's apartment while my aunt gets medical treatment in New York. This is the baby of the sisters, at 80 years old. Had to get the apartment ready, clean, change linens, lay in food. My son helped. He cleaned the bathroom and washed the towels and sheets and swiffered the hardwood floor. Yesterday, he got sick again. I think he never really got well. He spent all of today sleeping on the couch. I came home early from work to pamper him. He felt too weak all day to get up and make himself some food. Today, he seems a little better, but not much. I think his body is rebelling from being pushed so hard all year. It's insisting he lie still.

My daughter is in the midst of final exams. Tonight she tried to apologize in advance for failing History. I told her she can't think like that the day before the test, it would mean she'd given up. Just go in there and do your level best and then forget about it. She had studied all day (she said), so tonight, we watched So You Think You Can Dance together and then she went to bed. I felt slightly guilty for not sending her to study some more, but only slightly. She has a B+ in the course so far this quarter. Hopefully the exam won't wreck that too badly.

My husband has been in his cave, which is how I describe his moods. He goes in that dark place when he's processing something, or when he's trying not to process something. He becomes blank and uncommunicative. My instinct is to lob dynamite at the cave to see if there might be signs of life inside. Always a bad move. It makes him burrow deeper. Eventually I manage to pull back, and eventually he sticks his head out. Eventually, he returns.

I'm happy to say he has returned. Secretly, I think he's as melancholy as I am that 18 years of raising our boy are almost at an end. They have shared so much. He will miss him mightily when he leaves for college this August.

My daughter wants to go to the country house (with pool) of one of her friends this Friday, returning Saturday evening. Four of them, all pals since grade school, would take the jitney out together. My mother would never let me do such a thing in the middle of final exams. She would disapprove of my even asking the question. But I think I will tell our daughter yes. The worst of her finals, English, History and Physics, will be behind her. Only Math and Spanish will be left. She's in ninth grade for heaven's sake. Let her have some fun. Is that irresponsible parenting?

None of this, by the way, is the post I was writing in my head.

July 1: My daughter's report card just came and she made the honor roll for the quarter AND for the school year. Maybe this will help her remember never to count herself out.