Running Away and Joining The Circus

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Running Away and Joining the Circus.

“Oh Bozo, I never knew it could be like this.”

The circus always freaked me out inside. On the outside, I was fine. “Yay, circus… as long as I can eat peanuts.” But not on the inside. My inside was all, “Shit, the damn circus.”

It wasn’t the clowns. Everyone is always bitching about the clowns. I have no beef with clowns. Mimes, yes. Mimes are super freaky. Why are you in a box? Why are you holding a flower but everything else is expressed through gestures and accompanied by music? Yikes. Clowns, whatever. Unless we are talking about the clown from It, and I don’t think we are.

The circus freaked me out for many reasons. The complete “freak show” of it all was a big part of it, and I’m not talking the “bearded lady” or the “tattooed man”… that was never part of the circus I grew up with. Now that I live in Florida that is the crazy shit you see at the fair. I’d never been to a fair in New York. The fair is a completely different post. The freak show part of the circus (for me) was that it was a stage show, not like Shakespeare in the Park or My Fair Lady, those are actual stage shows; but that it had all of these animals and performers looking like they belonged somewhere else. I cannot think of a single thing stranger than seeing an elephant in the same place I have seen a hockey game. That’s just fucking ridiculous. I’m not even a huge animal rights advocate but at 7 years old, when my grandmother took me to the circus, I knew it didn’t fit.

As a Stay-At-Home-Mom I’m with my kids all day, every day.

ALL DAY, EVERY DAY.

If you’re not a Stay-At-Home-Parent just let that resonate a little bit. Let it marinate in your brain until you feel it. Do you feel it? Good. If you are at home, like me, know this, I FEEL YOU!

On Sunday, my husband doesn’t work, and under normal circumstances I usually get some sort of reprieve from my band of merry men. I don’t get mani’s or pedi’s or massages or facials. Usually, I just leave the house for an hour. 60 minutes where I don’t have to do shit for anyone else. That is 1 hour for me out of the 168 for everyone else. Boom.

Until recently.

Hubby has been coaching a soccer team and they have had tournaments on Sunday for the last couple of weeks.

Today was the first Sunday Hubby had been home in a long while.

I NEEDED A BREAK.

As I grabbed my purse and keys to “go to the store” I said, “Are you sure you’re going to be okay? I’m gonna take my sweet ass time.” He smiled and nodded as I sprinted out the door like a teenager heading to a kegger.

As I put the key in the ignition I actually thought of just GOING…

Driving. Driving away. Far, far, away. Going to Key West… Or Miami… or joining the circus.

And that, my friends, THAT, is how batshit fucking crazy these kids can make you. They can drive you to the brink. Screw that, they can push you way beyond the brink. Screw that, I’m at the point where I don’t even recognize the brink. The brink? What brink? The fact that I even considered (just for one hot minute) running away to join the circus (an entity that I’ve always loathed in its entirety) as a happily ever after from my current home life situation says volumes in itself.

Besides, I don’t have nearly enough tattoos.

 

 

Photo credit:  Ringling Circus clown Lou Jacobs with Carla Wallenda: Sarasota, Florida

 

 

Divorce is The New Black

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“Mama said they’ll be days like this…”

We all have “those days.”

I’m finding, when you have young children, you have more of the days my mama told me about. Lot’s more. Days where a glass of wine sounds like a good breakfast. Days where all you do is referee the most ridiculous fights (But he won’t stop looking at me {punch, kick} And he touched me first {headbutt} MOM!) but you don’t see the Don King “dolla dolla bills.” Days where you’re wondering how your college educated, brilliant mind, is scooping shit out of a size 5 pull-up. Days where you would pay good money to only have to do this 50% of the time.

Which brings me to my point.

Hubby and I spent our 20’s attending weddings. Everyone was getting married.

Then our 30’s at baby showers. Everyone was getting pregnant.

Now here we are, staring at 40, and EVERYONE is getting divorced.

The majority of my divorced and separated friends seem happy about it. They are out “doin’ it, and doin’ it, and doin’ it well” and I’m reading about it on Facebook while picking peanut butter out of my hair and finding dried snot on my shirt.

I love my family. I wouldn’t change a fucking thing about where I’m at right now. But, when I have an extra stressful day at home of repeating myself a trillion times to deaf little ears… I day-dream about having a weekend free from children.

‘Cause right now I’m on 100% of the time. My husband works 6 days a week and when he walks in the house at 7 pm, you’d think the Ringling Brothers circus just pulled up in the driveway. He’s the awesome novelty act while I am the warden.

“Daddy’s home!! DADDY!!! DADDY!!! DADDY!!”

{and they run to their Father and meet him before he even gets a foot in the door with hugs and kisses and stories about their day}

And I’m standing in the kitchen, making dinner, wearing the baby, hair stuffed into some off-kilter pony-tail.

I’m the Ogre that makes them wash their face, and “grab your backpack”, and “please sit on your bottom”, and “take your hand out of your pants”, and “STOP TOUCHING YOUR BROTHER!!”

And then I hear about all my divorced or separated friends who get their kids at a specific time, a time when they are well rested and the house is picked up, and they haven’t seen them in 5 days so they have super amazing trips planned, and “fun time” on the agenda. They get to have a different relationship with their children then I do.

I’m not gonna lie, sometimes… when I listen to their stories, I’m a twinge jealous.

I used to be super fucking fun.

Before kids, I was the person you called when you wanted to feel better. I was the one who had everyone’s stomach hurting with laughter. I would do stupid, reckless, and hilarious shit. I was a hoot.

But my kids don’t get to see that side of me because I’m too busy. And that kinda blows.

So at night, after an especially draining day and thankless unpaid hours of doing what I do because I have to… I’ll talk to a girlfriend who’s now a single mom. And she’ll tell me all the fantastic stories about the myriad of 22-year-olds she’s out kissing, and how she has her child this weekend and they are going to Disney or a movie or a concert… and I’ll be half listening to her while the other half of me is listening to the baby monitor… where in the other room, I overhear my husband reading a goodnight book to our 3-year-old, while the 9-year-old sits with his baby brother, who is cooing and giggling, and I think about how ridiculously lucky I am that I don’t ever have to share them, or worse yet… miss them.

Although they drive me batshitcrazy, I couldn’t even handle the emptiness I’d feel having to miss one fucking second of their lives.

Not one tear, not one poop, not a single moment.

Full-time Motherhood is a mind numbing siege.

And I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the universe.