Next Wednesday, Henry and I will bid farewell to the lizards, the 87 miles walked within the mall, the humidity, fire ant mounds, dripping Spanish moss, ubiquitous strip malls, confederate flags and punishing heat as we (with help from my dad) make the three-day drive back up to Chicago. And to be honest, I'm going to miss Florida. A little. Many good things happened here: I reconnected with one of the coolest girls I had the luck to befriend in junior high (and she's five times as cool now), I grew closer to my best friends in Chicago than I ever have been, I read a lot of great books, got to see my aunt and uncle for the first time in at least 10 years, treated myself to two good CDs, came to understand my parents and their issues a little better and did a lot of mighty fine hand-sewing of new garments that I'm quite proud of.
But of course, that's without mentioning my literally gut wrenching emotional collapses that my parents fearfully witnessed, the 3 a.m. panic that my child and I would be in physical danger when we arrived back home, the strained telephone and IM conversations between myself and stranger-husband, the bone-aching loneliness. I'm reminded of my impending single parenthood in little ways. It mostly breaks my heart when I see children's books that show a cheerful, loving mom and dad. I won't get to be in that story and neither will Henry. Yeah, I realize that's also not the reality for a LOT of families, but it just hurts because I'd always thought that my family structure was the most secure thing I could count on. Well, at least the Winnie the Pooh stories support single motherhood.
I'm scared I won't be able to get it all together to live in Chicago and I'll lose my home and friends as well as my marriage. I keep wondering how much further I can expect to fall until I hit some kind of solid ground and how close the sunlight will be when I get there.
I feel like we share a strange sort of bond.