Desperada

I am dying.

Big hot shot me. Big I got a sabbatical me.

My baby is leaving for college and I am dying. And it's only Thursday night. I have her one more day and then a bus ride up to Boston and a hug and kiss good-bye, and then me riding that same damn bus back.

Alone.

This time last year, I was broken. Broken. Leila found me on the futon, my lower lip out, something on tv but it didn't matter. "Oh Mommy," she said.

Tonight it's back but even Leila's not here. Got her own place.

You don't understand. I'm a runaway. I feel like packing up and moving to where? where?

I'm here.

Then I'll dismantle the dining table, stuff it in the bedroom and put a big palm tree there. Move the Blue Whale, shift the futon, buy new curtains. Take down the kitchen divider. Buy booze. Start smoking. Find a lover. Sugar Daddy.

Something.

Something.

Something.

If you'd heard me spouting how great it will be to be alone, to write all day, all night, one into the next, you'd laugh now to see me, biting my lip and wondering when Sarah will come home tonight? Wondering how I will get from this to next week? Last year I nearly got fired for having a complete separation anxiety meltdown in my class the night after coming home from Boston. I let the class go early and sat and read the newspaper. A weasel caught me and sent my boss upstairs. Like I said, I was nearly fired.

Now I'm on a sabbatical. Three weeks left. I can read my newspaper and blubber into it with no one to catch me.

When Sarah was a teenager, I used to tell Leila that if we humans knew how gut wrenching it'd be to be the parent of a teen, well, that'd be the best birth control.

This tops that.

This hurts too much.

Big shot me is broken again.

But I will use this time to transition. Watch me. I'm going to reinvent myself. First time since 1982 I've been alone.

Alone.

Alone.

Alone.

That's too long.

Dedicated to Sarah Nancy and Leila Sandra, my goddesses. I'll show you a woman can fly. I will do it, darlings. I have not yet begun to show what I can do.

Thank you for 23 years of divine presence. It has made me who I am. I shall go forward now.

I shall.

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOOXOXOXOOXOXOXOXOOXOXOXOXOXOOXOXOXOOX