sorry this will be short.
no pretty pictures of more boring museums
or soaring skyscrapers over the blur of rush hour traffic.
cuz today i did not leave the walls of this shabby old rental house in Atlanta.
But the walls have spoken. (I'll get to that in a moment.)
Today my son was sick and so while the girls were taken to the zoo and the CNN headquarters for some more touristy activities, I sat on the couch with my little one, held ice packs on his aching head, played the Brady Bunch season one dvd for him until he fell asleep, and kept him company while sneaking in a nap for myself.
(to be totally truthful and honest, i actually was quite relieved to stay home with Colby and avoid the drama and sadness I feel when trying to pretend that i'm not pretending...which just makes me sad because by now it's so clear to me what my heart's desire is, i know that i know what i know, and the truth makes me sad, makes me feel guilty, makes me fearful of the future.
it was nicer to avoid all that emotion and just enjoy snuggling with my little boy on someone else's old couch that smells like some other people which grosses me out and makes me not want to place my head on the couch pillows, just ew. but it was still sweet, he's still such a sweet young thing.
But here's where a little ripple of drama comes in...
not mine, though, fortunately. my daughter's.
(this is where the talking wall comes in...)
She and her friend Sarah were having a crazy loud time in the bedroom they're sharing next to mine..like silly girls do...
..and i was hearing lots of thumps and bumps but didn't think much of it.
until i heard her scream for me...for what happened was, in their wonderful game of turning somersaults and flips on their beds, my graceful girl accidentally smashed her foot through the wall!!!
(Can you hear that wall talking now?? I think i heard it scream OUCH!!!)
...and just for your perspective on the size of the hole, let's look again at the first picture, and you shall see what looks like a strange black dot underneath that weird abstract painting on the wall, see it?
I told her ok, no big deal, that's what security deposits are for,
but of course, she's a teenage girl with self esteem issues and when 30 minutes later her friend Sarah is still sitting alone in the room looking confused, i go to look for Sam and find her in the farthest corner of the downstairs, curled up and crying about that silly hole in the wall.
So i sit down on the smelly couch and try to comfort her by desperately racking my brain for a time in my own youth that i ALSO did something as stupid as smashing a hole in the wall whilst doing a somersault in someone else's house. hmmmmm. i guess we tend to push some of those mistakes out of our minds, a selective memory type of thing, as we get older. But after a box of chocolate raisins and a plate of cookies, she was back in the room with Sarah and they're back to giggling again. Just no more thump-bumps on the walls. I told her that one day they'd look back on this and laugh, which I am doing already, since I'm not the type to take things like this too seriously anyway. (i did many, many, many even STOOOPider things when i was much older than her. i may have had alcohol to blame for it, but still...)
ok, so thank God this trip is almost over and tomorrow we'll return to the clean streets, manicured lawns and snooty white Starbucks queens and stay-at-home moms of Cary, NC.
goodnight!
(said the wall.)
fade to black..
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