armless in DC

last week i was in DC with mike. just mike. and it was delicious.

getting ready to leave however, not so fun.

it seems that leaving your children, or actually any transaction involving traveling and children, be it with them or with out them, involves good planning and organization, and ends up being highly stressful. i'm not very organized, and i leave everything to last minute-and i always pay the price for this. i dream of being one of those people with the computer print out of everyone's schedules, the person who knows exactly what to pack, the person with the printed out list of what they need to bring on a trip. i am not that person, i am a terrible packer. i always have too much or too little. and i always forget socks, or my kids socks. and if i'm trying really hard to not forget socks, then i'll forget something even more important- like pants. the worst was the time i forgot diapers on the 20 hour trip to italy when zoe was 8 months old, before they sold them at the airport. i was that lady sidling up to random women with a child any age, making small talk and then asking for a diaper. "it's ok that it's a size 6, i'm sure it will be fine!"

the morning i was leaving for DC, started with zoe peeing on my hand. i was trying to collect a urine sample for brain balance to evaluate her 'allergy' profile. it was to be collected first thing that morning, driven to duluth (in some forsaken outside the perimeter location) where she also needed a blood test, all on an empty stomach. i will refrain from venting about suburbia, and strip malls and traffic and leave it that i vented to zoe the whole way there and back, while getting lost twice and cursing who ever invented "office parks". when we finally arrived at the 80's dark glass building- there was of course no signage- leaving us to circle it twice before finding the entrance. we walked in, and it was like we were in "the matrix".
a table, a book and a phone.
that was it. oh and a sign which read, 'sign in and dial "0"'. creepy. there were also no lights on and no people. when we finally got called back, zoe started freaking out. crying, going into the fetal position, refusing to unflex her arm, and after my hour long drive into suburan hell, i had no patience. alas, she was distracted by a Guster song on my iphone and didn't even notice the stick in the arm. we were done- and on our way back to the city. lost once, briefly, and not as much traffic. i dropped her at my moms and headed home to pack and leave.

and then we were off. on that plane. a time machine. back to the days of just the two of us, traveling. i had low expectations, which always helps. but it was fabulous. for me, there was no agenda, no interruptions, just hours to walk anonymously. to wander. bookshops and museums and internal quiet in the external noise. regrouping. being lost. park benches to sit on, fountains to listen to, sculpture gardens to walk through and writing to be written, with out anyone asking for a glass of milk or a bottom to be wiped. i didn't even realize how much i needed that. to be reminded of myself- separately from my beloved family.

i've never been a big believer in the "you have to know yourself- really know yourself" before you can fully love someone else. mike and i heard a lot of that when we got married in our early twenties.
"why would you get married now?? you're so young. you don't even know yourself. what if you change or he changes?"

either i was very self-actualized or just didn't care, or am kind of slow. but i felt that i'll never fully know myself because hopefully our lives will be changing and we'll be continually evolving and what seemed more important than some imagined 'arrival', was finding a good match, someone you deeply love, to go through it all with. and that's what i was so blessed to find with mike almost 17 years ago.

now our lives have become so physically and mentally entwined. then you add in our children-perhaps especially one with special needs- and you begin to feel a little bit like a fish who has turned into an octopus. how you move is different. what you can do is different. you now have all these arms and they have suction cups! so being alone, and being alone with him, was like shedding the arms for a few days. and it was fantastic.

mike and i sometimes reflect back to our years with out kids and think, what did we do with all that time? and why didn't we value it more? but we find that after a few armless days, we realize that everything now looks so different, that you can never go back to being that fish, now your just an armless octopus and what can they do? and in all those parks and museums you think, "oh jude would love this!" or "i can't wait to bring zoe back here!" or "i don't think bryn is too young to like DC". and you realize that your life is not your own anymore, it will never go back to being just yours. but now instead of just seeing the world through your own eyes you see it through all theirs as well. and more perspectives are a great thing, especially the view from a child.

it's like that line from Out of Africa.

"you've ruined it for me you know." karen blixen says.
"ruined what?" denys says.
"being alone."

i'll take ruined. i'll take my eight,long,tangled, suction-cuppy arms.

but two days off with my man, can go a long way in helping me remember that.