There’s a bag of Haribo Ice Tea gummies next to me and a library discard book I bought for $1 at the last library book sale. I’m supposed to be reading and rewarding myself with gummy bears shaped like bottles of iced tea, instead I caught myself doom-scrolling the internet. Perhaps writing here to you instead is a fair compromise.
It’s Thursday and the kids all went back to school today. Happy New Year! Cade texted at 3:08 asking if he’s supposed to ride the bus or come home with Austin; so I, in turn, texted Austin to see if he has band practice today; back to Cade, to tell him to ride with Austin . . . Mia has karate, so that’s what I’m doing now—waiting to sign her out. I expect Austin to text me any minute: “What was I supposed to get from the store?” And I’ll screenshot our text thread, circle the list I sent him, and send it right back to him.
I got here early in hopes of starting new habit, in hopes of using the time to unwind and rest my brain, but I did what I always do and ended up browsing social media and calling it research or catching up. Last semester, I used this time to check up on the college class I was taking. My next class doesn’t start until next week, and in a few short months, I’ll have an Associate’s Degree to show for twenty years of hard, ass-busting learning. (What in the world?!) I keep telling myself when the weather gets warmer, I’ll park the car and walk laps around the school—it’s what my dad would do. That would mean I’d have to put on real shoes with socks and I’m not about that life at the moment.
I have no idea what’s for dinner. Groceries stress me out these days—everything is so expensive—and we’re just on a never-ending rotation of a few thrown-together, crowd-pleasing meals that don’t require much thought. One of the things on Austin’s list was eggs, and scrambled egg sandwiches sound amazing, but I think we’re out of bread and it wasn’t on the list . . .
Josh will walk through the door at precisely 6:12 or 6:21, depending on traffic, and we’ll sit down at the table to whatever meal I throw together. Probably pasta or nachos, I suppose. The kids will say their first day back to school was “fine,” and we’ll make small talk about all the things we left undone today and what our plans for the weekend are, if we’ll go back to the church we visited over Christmas break, and somewhere along the way, we’ll talk about all the things we hope and want to do this year before we crawl in bed and complain because there’s nothing to watch on Hulu and the sheets are ice cold. I bet he gets up to get us each a mini ice cream sandwich though.
I get to live this life.
I marvel at the thought every day.
What about you: what marvelous things do you want to catch me up on?