The Weekend has me thinking

On Friday's drive home from the second doctor's appointment that week I ended up talking to my mother and getting frustrated so easily again and it made me sad. When I hung up I wondered how things had become so difficult and why it is so hard to get through the little things I wanted to say. Sometimes I wonder if I still act like a teenager with her.

Instead of copping out on seeing old, great, best friends for dinner in the city, I agreed to venture out into the arctic chill to meet them. For the first part of dinner I felt distant; I couldn't stop feeling stressed about work. The mistake. Was my boss going to be angry with me on Monday after skipping out of work early again, leaving her with the outstanding issues, the inconsistencies of our quarterly process?

I started wondering if it was my anxiousness and anxiety about work and about my mother which made me believe that I was beginning to feel like the third wheel with friends. I hung out with them so many times over the years, they have seen me grow up from emaciated to out of control, from a child into a woman.

I got a stomach ache that night and learned to keep it under wraps after so many miserable outings of feeling sick and being worried about drawing attention from others. I ended up telling of my evening to bub, sleepy on the couch, late that night.

The next morning was easier. The gym was temporarily therapeutic, the sweat and work I put my body through to shed the stress and anxiety of work. Had my last email to my boss at 12:33am that morning been curt, rude? I read and reread.

We went to church and I listed to how we each have a mission to fulfill. An easy homily. An easy rule. Hard to figure out, apparently. I watched the woman on the podium rub her eyes; she can't see. She clutches onto the chairs as she feels for her safety.

We go out last night for a date and do not cop out and watch movies on t.v. until much later, after drinks at a remote bar. Its dark shadows, brick walls, dim lanterns make me feel like we're tourists at a trendy bar in a faraway place. Paris. Spain. I've never been there.

The air is warmer.

We see houses today. We are filled with hope. We don't feel the future lingering. We know we won't share the space with our children. It's not right.

It's not perfect.

We see my parents and I wonder if I'm too harsh with my demands for an upstairs/downstairs house, not a ranch, one with a porch, garage, and yard. That their new room could be a master bedroom. I laugh, my mother makes a noise and I wonder if my joke wasn't a joke to her.

My dad is lively and my mom sends us with scones, a recipe for them, and love. My dad and I hug goodbye and he comes back for another one and then another one.

I wonder if they're okay.

I wonder if I am.

And there's the laundry to do.

Now.