So school is all but here. I mean, it’s not even leaping out at me. It’s all up in my face like I owe it some money, plus interest. I find myself doing a nesting of sorts. In pregnancy, around month six or seven, the uncontrollable urge to clean, to prepare, to tie up loose ends and organize your existence overwhelms any other rational thoughts an expectant mother may have. I’ve got the uncontrollable urge to fill up my days doing things — something, anything, occasionally nothing.
I’ve pulled out recipes I’ve been wanting to try. I’ve baked, grilled, and fried, filling the fridge with all kinds of goodies for us to pick on throughout the week. I’ve gone to the zoo, the Botanical Gardens, Busch Gardens, and made a circuit of the outdoor YMCA pools. I’ve gone to the malls, the library, the variety of parks at our disposal. I’ve trolled all over Norfolk looking for mermaids. I’ve read at least half a dozen books in the past eight days. I’ve dug out old journals, deciphering my coded chicken scratch, amazed at my taut angst, quick wit, and ferocious vocabulary. I pulled a wad of love letters from DH down from the shelf and read one each night before I slammed down into sleep.
I’ve written more blog entries in the last couple of days than I did in the first half of the summer. I don’t have anything witty or interesting to say; I just want to feel as though I’ve done something these past several months.
April 24th, 2009. The last day of classes, my nursing school pre-requisites have been completed. The summer stretched out before me, a promise of beaches, lazy days, and shimmering heat. Nothing but potential and possibility. I know that when it’s all said and done, no one is tallying up how much time you spent organizing playgroups, how many trips to the bay you managed, how entertained and occupied you and your family were. There are no prizes for the most overstimulated, over scheduled family. I somehow can’t shake the feeling that I could have done something else, that we should have piled in the car and taken another mystery ride or trip to the zoo. I know there is one more mermaid that we haven’t discovered.
As school approaches, my GI tract starts pairing off and doing the pasodoble. My anxiety is steadily climbing in conjunction with the temperatures of late. I’m wondering if we’ve done enough? Did we have enough fun? Did we get enough sun and drink enough pool water? Did we hang out with our friends enough? Did we get bitten by mosquito as we chased the ice cream truck down the street? Did we eat enough ice cream? Did we grill as many steaks as we could have? And even if when the answer is yes, yes, and again, yes, would I really think it’s enough?
See, when school starts, my defense mechanism for this stress is to shut down and focus solely on the responsibilities at hand: the girls, DH, the house, myself (note the order there — what would Freud or Gloria Steinem say?). Until I can figure out what I need to do and the amount of effort I need to do it well, everything else falls to the ground. When my responsibilities start settling around me, when we turn the clocks back and everything gets thrown into darkness at 3:30 in the afternoon, I’m going to reach into my sack of summer memories. I’ll pull out our first foray into mermaid finding, our margarita and munchies night with the neighbors. I’ll wrap my hands around that brief glimpse of DH whirling the girls in the air, of Mo finally getting the hang of how to peddle her trike, of Co catching her first firefly. Those memories are going to have to sustain me until the next stretch.
It’s going to have to be enough.