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This week my brain woke up. Suddenly it is composing blog posts while I’m doing other things. Or planning a short story collection. Or thinking up picture books. Or all of those simultaneously. I’m facing huge projects with excitement rather than a sense that I have to push through inertia just to keep moving. I don’t know how long it has been since my brain was bubbling over with thoughts like this, but I suspect it was more than a year ago. I’ve missed it. Project energy combined with the emptiness of my calendar for the next few weeks bodes well for getting lots of work done. That’s good, because I have a lot of work I need to do, particularly for Planet Mercenary.

When I pick up a book in the middle after I’ve not read in a while, there is always an orientation period where I have to read and remember where I was in the story, who is talking, what is the plot driving the characters forward. Today has been like that. I have been re-settling myself back into my house and my parenting roles. I sort through the fridge to see how the contents have changed while I was gone. I run loads of laundry and I run errands. I contact teachers of my two sons, both of whom stayed home from school while I was gone. One by one I pick up the tasks that I put down before I left. They feel lighter than they did before. The rest was good.

I still have tasks to pick up. Most notable are the business tasks. There is accounting and shipping to do tomorrow. Then I have to dive into layout work on Planet Mercenary. Howard and Alan need to see their words in context so that they know the words are working the way they need to. The house could use vacuuming and I really need to finish off the pin sorting project that has been living in our family room for a month. The flower beds need to be weeded and planted so that I will have a fresh crop of flowers for future me to enjoy. There are grapes to pick and turn into juice.

And I want to take time to draft the pair of picture books which showed up in my head and are wanting attention. Then there are the edits on House in the Hollow.

It feels very nice to have my head buzzing with things I want to do instead of just trudging from chore to chore.

This morning I had a conversation with a friend who was having to decide between a professional event and helping a relative post-surgery. She knew I’d understand because I’m leaving on Saturday and I’ll leave behind three kids who all have school schedules and mental health issues. I’ll leave them in the care of a responsible adult. They will be fine, but it is entirely possible that me being gone will trigger anxiety and panic episodes. And then they’ll have to deal with that. I may come home to emotional clean up. The responsible adult who is coming to watch my kids had to arrange for eldercare for her mother-in-law while she would be gone. None of these things had to land on top of each other. There were lots of other weeks available. But my experience is that my kids are most likely to melt down when I have somewhere I’m supposed to be.

Life is messy. All the things interfere with all the other things. I wish they wouldn’t, but if I put “non essential” things on hold until there is a clear space for them, then I’d never get to them at all. And some of those non essential things are actually pretty critical. It is true that even if it doesn’t rain, you can draw water from the well. Yet if the rain is gone long enough, the aquifer empties and the well goes dry.

So, barring death or dire circumstances, I am going on a trip. On the far side of it we will all have had experiences that are new and maybe we’ll all have grown. Even if there are emotions to untangle when I return, taking the trip is the right choice this time.

One week from today I’ll be on a ship en route to the Caribbean. I’ve never been on a cruise ship before, nor have I been to that part of the world. This is both exciting and anxiety inducing. I’ve watched as the final schedule for the writing and workshop portion of this event comes together. It is going to be an amazing trip, but I am definitely going to come home tired. I will have hiked in new places and spent hours working to make sure that the attendees and their families are happy with their trips. I’ll have almost no access to the internet while I’m gone, but I may write up blog posts to put online when I get back. Or I might spend my writing time on fiction. I don’t know what thoughts this trip will unfold in my head.

Between now and my departure I have much work to do in order to get my house, my business, and my kids ready for me to be gone. I’ve arranged to import a responsible adult, but I have instructions to write so the adult will know who needs to go where and when. I also have to pack. Oh, and there is also my son’s Eagle Scout board of review and two Parent Teacher conference days along with all the regular things. It is going to be a busy couple of weeks.

As of tomorrow morning half of my children are legally adults. That is just the capstone of a surprisingly eventful week which included a couple of emotional hurdles, school meetings, the news that it is possible for Link to graduate with his class (a thing I’d thought was a lost cause, which now I have to decide whether we should stretch for it. Letting it go had reduced stress), a new diagnosis for one of my kids, planning for an 18th birthday, having to decide to shift a school schedule, a couple of kids missing school because of meltdowns, another kid coming down with a cold, a phone call about a problem with Link’s Eagle Scout paperwork that caused me (needless) anxiety and my 95 year old grandmother being in the hospital again.

At one point during the week I called my sister and said “I need help processing.” She immediately invited me over and we sat for a couple of hours while I spoke all the random things in my head. I’m still processing. Mostly I’ve spent this weekend making sure Link’s birthday went well because I really messed up Kiki’s 18th birthday and Link’s last two birthdays were seriously impacted by Salt Lake Comic Con. We have one more day before we declare the birthday complete, but so far all the things have gone well.

I only have two weeks before I depart for the Out of Excuses Retreat. My big goal between now and then is to put things into a stable configuration so the kids can just do school while I’m gone. There are a lot of To Dos on my list.

It is always the little things that surprise me as my kids are growing up. Or maybe they are big things, but the key is the surprise. In stories these are the surprising yet inevitable plot moments where the audience first gasps and then says “of course, how could it be any other way?” This time it was an email.

“Link needs to register for selective services before his eighteenth birthday.”

I blinked at the email, in a sort of shocked pause. My boy is too young to have to register for the draft. Except he isn’t. Not anymore. It is only about two weeks until he is a legal adult and many of the rules change. One of them is filling out a form that registers him as a young male eligible for the draft should our country have a major military conflict and need more soldiers than it currently has enlisted.

No one has been conscripted or drafted into the United States Military since 1973, the year I was born. There hasn’t been a draft in my lifetime. The odds that my son will be called upon to fight my country’s battles are negligible. Our country has enough strong and good volunteers who fill those roles. But staring at that email, I had a moment of fear. For a moment war loomed and I felt connected to generations of mothers before me who sent off their sons, and to mothers now, who still do because their sons and daughters volunteer. My son is not a warrior. He doesn’t even like to play violent or bloody video games. And if he struggled and nearly broke when faced with the challenges of high school, I shudder to think what boot camp would do to him. I spent a long moment picturing what going to battle could do to him physically and mentally.

After a moment, the shadow of fear passed. I filled out the form to register him. This is one of the responsibilities of being a citizen, along with jury duty, and paying taxes. Yet when I hope and pray for peace in the world, there is just a slight bit more fervor in my prayers. I know that my family and I are very fortunate in the peaceful existence we’ve lived. It is good for me to face the fact that not everyone gets to choose a peaceful life.

It was the final day of the annual Perseid meteor shower. If I’d wanted the full display I should have gone out at 1am that morning. Instead I found myself laying on my back staring at the sky while the clock ticked over into the next day. Three of my kids and I were spending the night at a cabin in a state park. We were far away from city lights. The night was clear. All we needed was for the Perseids to cooperate and trail a few lingering meteors across the sky.

I lay there with my children, waiting. School would start for them in only a few days. I didn’t know how that would go. We were waiting for that too. Light streaked across the sky and I gasped, just a small, involuntary intake of breath at the sudden appearance and disappearance of light. It had been years since I’d seen a shooting star. I sent a quick prayer after it, almost like a wish.

Please let us grow this year instead of shrink. Please let us have happiness instead of hurt. Please, I don’t know what we need for this year, please help us figure it out.

More lights dashed across the sky. Some faint. Some bright. There weren’t many. Nothing like the display that people had described from the night before. I didn’t wish on them all, but each of them stole my breath for just a moment.

I wasn’t alone with the stars. My children lay with me, sometimes silent, sometimes cracking jokes with their cousins, always exclaiming out loud when lights streaked across the sky. I was glad to have them there with me, watching the lights and the darkness.

Shooting stars did not bring us any answers, just a beautiful moment to treasure.

I wandered through the house and it was strange and quiet. All four of my kids were off at their schools. Howard away at a convention. I paused to think when I last had the house to myself for five hours in a row. I don’t know when it was. Probably before Howard started working from home instead of trekking to Dragon’s Keep to do his drawing. That was eighteen months ago. Last December was when Link started being at home during school hours and my days were regularly interrupted by urgent meetings, surprise school pick ups, emotional crises, and home schooling. This morning they all left cheerfully. And they came home calmly. In between I had hours. I just wandered around in those hours rather than settling to a focused task. Come Monday I’ll try to build a work schedule around having those hours. It is time to proceed as if all will be well.

Waiting for a train to go
or a bus to come, or a plane to go
or the mail to come, or the rain to go
or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow
or waiting around for a Yes or No
or waiting for their hair to grow…
…or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants
or a wig with curls, or Another chance
Everyone is just waiting.
–Dr. Seuss, Oh the Places You’ll Go!

I don’t go to the waiting place on purpose. I never think “It is time for me to wait” and then take myself there. In fact I usually don’t even realize I am there until I’ve been sitting around for quite a while. Today for example. I have dozens of tasks on which I could spend my time, but I was struggling to get moving on any of them. It was six pm before I figured out why. School starts next week and I’m scared about it. I don’t know what emotional resources will be required of me in those first days of class. I don’t know what emotional meltdowns lay in wait for me as I take Kiki back to school, launch Patch into junior high, watch Gleek embark on more homework than she’s had in the past couple of years, and hope that three classes on campus do not prove too overwhelming for Link. Some part of my psyche evaluated all of that incoming emotional load and switched over into an emergency conservation mode. Without planning to do it, I entered the waiting place where my brain is mostly idling until the important events occur.

Getting out of the waiting place is as tricky as realizing I’m in it. It is possible for me to muscle through. I can just make myself get jobs done, but that is not the same as truly emotionally engaging with the work. When I’m focused, staying focused is easy. There is momentum and happiness in task completion. When I’m waiting, I wander off. I lose track of where I was. All the jobs are harder. It is harder to get started. It is harder to stay on task. It is harder to not get distracted. I wish I could tell myself “it will all be fine” and believe that. It might even be true. I might be conserving emotional energy for crises that never materialize. That has happened before. Not lately, but within memory. Sometimes muscling through will actually help me escape. Other times it just allows me to get things done until the thing I’m waiting for arrives. Still other times I just distract myself until the waiting is over.

Whether I manage to pull myself out or whether the waiting evaporates because of arrival, knowing that I’m in the waiting place is helpful to me. It lets me recalibrate my thought processes and recognize why my brain is reacting sluggishly to things.

I made waffles for breakfast this morning because tomorrow my sons are getting on a plane and flying far away from me. They love waffles, so it was a good excuse to gather everyone into the kitchen at the same time. They sat across the table from each other taking turns with the butter and syrup while they talked about a game that they’ve been playing. Points and bosses were discussed with smiles and humor. I watched them and listened to the timbre of their voices, they both sound like Howard now. Particularly if I’m upstairs and can’t make out what is being said. They’ve negotiated who gets which suitcase and after church we’ll fill up those suitcases with clothes. Tomorrow they fly to go visit grandparents. I will drop them off and a few hours later I’ll welcome my girls home. Last week it was my girls that I watched knowing they’d be traveling.

Tomorrow I’ll help the girls unpack their suitcases and their experiences. They did things that were fun. Things happened that were stressful. They visited my grandmother who no longer has a clear grasp on who anyone is. The saw an aquarium, went ice skating. Yet I think the whole trip has been a good thing. Even the hard parts. I’ll be glad to have them back where I can hug them.