Hunted

A lot of stuff went down today.

I guess that should be expected when you get up to have a pee in the dead of night and in mid-act hear your husband's alarm going off. Because it's 2:30 a.m. and time for him to head to work.

Some days, I don't know. Life hunts you down. "Oprah says you can't solve emotional problems geographically," I tell the husband, but sometimes the urge to flee is so strong. Sometimes you want to feel safe in your world, even though you know that doesn't exist. We rushed over to Oskar Blues Homemade Liquid and Solids because that's what the male V and I do when we're feeling hunted. We eat and drink, the girls blow up Death Stars and, as I would come to find out hours later while in emergency room triage, stuff sand down their pants.

Don't judge their sandy-bottomed joy.

After that we had no strength to venture out in the cold. We headed for Barnes and Noble in Boulder. Within five minutes I realized our mistake and we left. Ayla asks for everything. Her requests the white rabbit, I leap down my black hole. I'm getting better at what my Blood Sister A calls "thought-stopping". When my brain starts to launch me into my old "universe is out to get me" or "good things don't come my way" soliloquies, I can usually tell her just to knock it off. Depression is a wolf howling at the door, who says you have to open it? But when she knocks in the form of my children having desires, I spiral downhill fast. "I want to ask Santa to bring me Legos for Christmas," says Daughter A and seconds later I'm shivering in the corner, mind whirling with every sparkly gift I can't afford to buy them. Christmas is coming. Get the hell out of the retail stores.

Fortified now with hot beverage, we drove to the park. My husband tossed my daughters around in the leaves to their everlasting delight. The dog stalked squirrels.

Somewhere in all this I canceled our cable, found a rejection letter in my email, and decided to dye my hair brown. The day grows dark. We buy produce for a vegetarian dinner, healthy. Just what we need.

Everything happens when mom goes to the bathroom. From my moment's peace, I hear a yelp. A yowl. I open the door and my Indy is crying. I rush to her and grab her little face, which is smeared in blood. She had been resting her head on the dog. The dog has nipped her. One cut on her lip is very small but deep enough that I bundle her back into boots and drive her to the emergency room. Ayla is sobbing, she stays home with dad.

In the Emergency Room a couple checks in. She's twelve weeks pregnant. I assume she's had bleeding but later I hear whispered 'throwing up'. I don't know. I count my blessings. My baby is shaken, but she's here on my lap.

In the emergency room, we discover the sand in her britches.

No stitches required. They say she won't have a scar.

I email Blood Sister A. I tell her I wish a wise person would swoop into my life and tell me what to do.

Then I figure, maybe that wisdom's just waiting here.

Within me.

















(This picture is of Indy feeling better and playing with the syringe they gave her. I love the fierce concentration on her face. She was plotting about how she was going to come home and squirt Ayla. Like that.)