Kathleen McCall:
Occasional�� Muse�

2001-07-27 - 11:30 a.m.

100% Kid Free

The kids go off this afternoon to spend a week with their father. This is the one week a year where I'm truly off-duty as a mom.

It's a bit weird, this year. My best friend happens to be on vacation in Puerto Vallarta, and my boyfriend is...well....I guess he just isn't, any more. So the two people I would have spent a lot of this time with are gone.

I'm going to have a lot of alone time.

I've made plans for the week. Well, that isn't strictly true. I've made daydreams. The list of things I am going to do is simply amazing. The house will be so clean and repaired, the girls won't even know it's home when they come back. House Beautiful. Yard Beautiful. Pairs of clean socks that haven't surfaced for a year, nestled neatly in dresser drawers.

Wanna buy a bridge?

I love alone time. After my divorce, when the kids started going away on weekends, all my well-meaning friends invited me out. But I wasn't lonely. I was prowling the empty house, eating smoked oysters right out of the can, playing the stereo loud, idiot-dancing in the livingroom. It took two YEARS of that before I really wanted to give up some of that weekend time to being social. I like my own company. This is a good thing.

There are so many things that I can do when the kids aren't here. I can paint. I can eat what I want. I can get more writing done. I can throw away all their stuff.

(Yes, I do; don't you? Hey, these kids still have the contents of every party bag they've ever gotten. How many plastic stencils of the Star of David does one household need? Some poor children somewhere are going to be very happy that my kids were out of the house for a week.)

I'm going grocery shopping tomorrow, and for the first time this year, it might be fun. I'm going to take the whole grocery budget and buy things I want to eat. Mothers, think about that for a minute. An entire cart with no cereal in it, no crackers, no yoghurt unless I decide to make Tandoori Chicken. Certainly no strawberry-banana yoghurt. I'm not entirely sure what WILL be in it, but I'm going to go up and down the aisles and LOOK at things. I'm going to SHOP. In the grocery. Neat, huh?

I'm also going to the hardware store, but not until mid-week. Not until the projects have at least been started and look likely to be finished. Because I know me, and if I go to the hardware the first day, I will buy a ton of stuff and then never get around to installing it. It will turn into more Garage Junk. In fact, I probably don't need to go to the hardware store at all; it's probably all out there in the garage already, if I could find it.

Maybe after this week, I will be able to. Garage Beautiful. Has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?

There are a hundred undone things on my current list that make me wince when I think of them. In fact, the wince ones are the least of the worries. Besides wince items, I have slightly nauseating items, terrifying items, and go-right-back-to-bed items. Wouldn't it be wonderful to knock a few of these off the list for good? Doesn't a guilt-free life sound seductive? Maybe this week, I can make some inroads.

I look over these plans and I think they're a bit unexciting, on paper. On the other hand, having a small life makes one's expectations small. I'm a cheap date, which is good, because I'm dating myself these days, and I'm poor. I don't need expensive concert tickets and whirlwind nights on the town. I'm quite happy with a rental film and a package of Orville Redenbacher's Caramel Popcorn. And I'll go to bed with myself afterward, even if the movie stinks.

I will miss my kids. Intellectually, I won't miss them at all. But every once in a while I'll get this wave of thumping emptiness, a huge sudden longing for my pups to curl up on the couch with, an ache to sniff the tops of their heads right NOW. It's not something I can fix by talking to them on the phone. It will pass.

I will miss my boyfriend. I didn't smell the top of his head very often. Maybe I should have. But this, too, is something I can't fix. So maybe this, too, will pass. If it doesn't, I will live with it. I can be very brave - when I don't have any other choices.

I already miss my best friend. I never gave her permission to go. But she'll come back, brown and rested, with tales to tell and pictures to show. I'll invite her down to see House Beautiful, and she will be amazed, because in 25 years of friendship she has never seen my house look like I'm daydreaming it's going to look. (It's a sturdy, decorative bridge, and just for you today - half price.)

I know the week will go by quickly. A week off mom duty is much much shorter than the week that it takes to get a promised check in the mail, or the week it takes to hear the results of a job interview. But I'm going to try to grab as much of my week as I can, as it goes by. Wish me luck.

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