I've been having a great day. I have a fresh pedicure, which is an instant mood boost, but I also got a really terrific esthetician so I feel like I just came from the spa instead of cramming in a trip to Coolidge Corner on my lunch. Several strangers complimented my dress. HR is on his last day of camp before the big show and he seems to have found his groove in week two, and I suppose that really set the stage for my cheeriness, if you will. Oh and after the play tomorrow afternoon we're on the first leg of summer vacation palooza. Already? That's what I'm saying, yet I am also saying, "YESSS." For a million, billion reasons, but vacation in and of itself is always welcome.
There's the matter of the whole mess of everything in the country going on that I'm hoping to mentally escape as I play in the waves and eat and drink and read mystery novels and just be with all the best people, of course. I was hoping, at this time one year (and two years) ago, that things would have changed by now. I didn't allow myself to think that they wouldn't get better, and I couldn't dare, couldn't have mustered the capacity to imagine the specific ways that they got worse, but yeah. Everything is a big gross mess and I'm low-to-high-key angry and sad from the time I wake up until I can steal a moment of shifted focus to get to sleep at night. It'll be here when I get back. It'll be here even while I'm living my vacation life. It's just easier to ignore when electricity isn't even an option, and then I have guilt about ignoring things. A catch-22 in SPF 50, that's this whole situation (gesturing to myself). The blog lady's refrain, in E minor.
Anyway, since the happiness has already shown up, I might as well invite it in and feed it well. I look at this picture from HR's first vacation, when he was just three months old and though it was the least relaxing getaway of my life, it was perfect in its way.
He was attached to my boob for 4/5 of the time, and I remember feeling like I was in baby jail, but I'm able to look back on it with warm wistfulness. It was the year when so many people met our baby for the first time, when HR slept in Memere's arms in front of the campfire (and woke about 50 times a night), when my world stopped being about just me. As HR grows, it gets more exciting to look to the weeks ahead and not only appreciate how much less parenting work is mingled with the fun but to know that the memories we make are starting to accumulate, that this is the time when he'll remember things forever.
I look forward to being surrounded by nature and laughing at whatever this year's recurring joke will be and wearing my first red bikini (I'll be 45 in a few months, if not now then when?) and experiencing the particular joy of just hanging out with my dudes, none of us with anywhere to be. I look forward to finding out whatever good surprises await. Only good ones, please.
I'll be writing about all of this in the rear view in the blink of an eye, and it'll be fun to see how it all turned out, but not so fast. I've got more work ahead before it even starts, and I hope to savor the moments as they come, even just the general rosiness of this day. It's all a gift and I owe the universe a trillion thank you notes.
See ya.. sometime.