Sweet Water and Bitter

 (Image by Stuart Miles, courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net)

Oh, my friends, I feel like I have so much to do lately. At the end of my day at the office, I come home and I have blog stuff to catch up on, I have freelance writing assignments, I have to make the house nice for my husband to come home to and we have to have a meal. Somewhere in there I have to take a bath, and by then I’ve about run out of energy. There are errands that I truly need to do, but they just never seem to happen!

For instance: our boss ASSIGNED us to participate in a Secret Santa thing at work…please note that this was not optional, it was required. (Are you saying “She can’t do that!” ?? That’s what we said, too. But she did!) This entails giving two gifts per week to a coworker. Another thing: we’re going to Georgia over Thanksgiving and my son does not have sufficient warm clothes. Kids in FL (where we live) are still wearing shorts to school some days. He owns nothing warmer than a T-shirt and a light knit sweat jacket, but my husband mistakenly thinks that’s sufficient, so I need to shop for warmer clothes on my own. It ain’t happ’nin! I also had about five garments that I needed to get hemmed. Four I’ve been wearing anyway, I’d just be happier if they were shorter, but the other (my nice new corduroy jumper that would have been great for Thanksgiving) can’t be worn as-is. I rode around for a week with these things in my car, but did I ever make it to an alteration shop? No! I also need to shop for something to wear to my office Christmas party (which can also be used for the candlelight Christmas Eve service at church and the matinee performance of the Nutcracker). And I have to take a white elephant gift to that party–something in a $20 range that most anybody, male or female, might like to have. And  I’m a good week or probably more past needing to get my hair done. Stuff is piling up on my to-do list!

But the thing is…after working all day–and incidentally I do not get a lunch hour–I’m tired and hungry and I just want to hurry home before the traffic builds up. And then on the weekends, my hubby–BLESS HIS HEART (lol)–wants us to be together every second, plus, he generally has scheduled so many errands for ME to accompany HIM on that once we’re finished, I’m pooped all over again and never get around to the things I needed to do.(Like yesterday, we had lunch with friends, but after that he had a whole list: we went to Walmart–where I was looking around wistfully thinking “Gee, I wish I could pick out that white elephant gift,”  but instead, I was getting dragged along by his momentum..(“Four items and then we’re outta here and on to the next stop!”); then we were on to buy gas…then to a different place to put air in the tires…then to Walgreen’s…then to a restaurant to get something for our son…by then it was nearly dark! To me this seems like a very unusual marriage situation. My friend was telling me the other day that when she was a teenager, a boyfriend who wanted to go everywhere and do everything with a girl was jokingly referred to as her “backpack.” But I don’t think I’ve ever actually heard a wife mention having a backpack husband!

For a long time, I ASSUMED my husband was like most guys who would take it in stride when I announced that I wanted to do things unaccompanied, but eventually I realized that it actually hurts his feelings. Seems crazy, but it’s true. He hates to be left at home. So, in order to cope with this, I play a few mind games with myself. For one, I imagine what if he–at the very moment when I just want to go to the dang store by myself–were no longer with me. What if I were a widow today, and could go anywhere I wanted without him to “bother” me? Obviously I would be devastated if he were gone, so that tends to improve my attitude. My other mind game is to imagine: What if, instead of wanting to go everywhere with me, he was constantly making up flimsy stories to get away from me, and home, and go off someplace to meet up with another woman? THAT thought never fails to get my attitude adjusted very quickly. And finally, I think of a dear friend of mine who never married and who has spent so many years living all alone. She would give anything for a “backpack.”

So, to sum it up, my errands are not done, but my husband is happy. I guess I’ll just have to take a day off sometime soon, if I’m ever going to cross anything off of MY list!

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By the way…one of those blog-related things I keep working on is that I’m trying to get a Facebook page set up for the blog. I didn’t want to link it to my personal page so I had to create a new personal page and then add the blog page to it. I ‘m quite familiar with Facebook and yet this little project never seems to get finished. I keep thinking it will take five minutes and then it takes longer so I have to set it aside and do something else. However, please be on the lookout for an announcement when I finally do get it ready. Facebook will be a fun way for us to talk to each other more and I’m looking forward to it.