Freedom is Exhausting and Expensive

In a strange, earth-off-its-axis twist of fate, Patti and I both remain "family-less" this week. BOTH of our Latino husbands, took our kids to their homeland to visit family, while BOTH of us remain alone...and free!!!!

This is, you should know, the first time we have BOTH lived alone, ever. We've always lived with parents/roommates/friends/husbands/kids at every point in our lives. SO as you can imagine, it has been quite the experience thus far.

Granted, for me, it's only been two whole days. I woke my weary ass up at 3:30am to drive my family to the airport on Sunday, dropped them off, waved goodbye to ALL of them at once, drove back in a delirious sleep-deprived ugly cry the whole way home, and went back to sleep at 6am clutching an ugly ass doll that my little one handed to me before she left and told me to "Keep her in a safe place." I didn't care what the doll looked like at that point, I just knew what it represented.

But when I awoke from my second sleep cycle in the same night/morning, I had a strange feeling of calm. I tried to feel sad but didn't really. I was actually starting to get excited. I had a busy day planned (I'm sure this had everything to do with my mood) and it was a beautiful day outside (ditto).

Fast forward to today. I am still trying to sort out my feelings. Shouldn't I feel more sad than this? Shouldn't I go sniff the pillows on their bed or the clothes in their drawers to feel closer to them? Shouldn't i sleep on their beds at night? Shouldn't I miss them more? Even now, all alone, the innate motherly guilt finds a way to rear its ugly head into my life. Of course, it's only been two days. I know I would never want to handle something like this for a long period of time. I thought back to how my dad did it when we were little and my mom used to take us to Greece for MONTHS at a time.

But...I am trying to make the most of my selfish, all-about-me, lack of responsibility to others freedom ride I am on right now. How, you ask? By booking as much stuff into these days as possible to keep me occupied. Things I've been wanting to do, (shopping, working out, catching up with friends, random errands), watching shows and movies I've been wanting to watch, redecorating and cleaning out the house without any "WHY are you throwing my (enter meaningless chachki item name here) away???"

However, I am finding that all of this newfound freedom comes with a cost.
Want to go out and shop? Need money. Want to go see a movie? Money. Want to go out for dinner? Money. Want to redecorate the house? Money. Want to meet a friend for drinks? Money. Anything worth doing when you have the chance to do it takes money. OF COURSE i can have friends over or I can go to their house, but that is what we always have to end up doing when we have our kids with us. This is our chance to go OUT, dammit! To dust off our cobwebbed "going out" clothes, strap on our high heels and go OUT in style!

Not to mention, in our heads, the booked itineraries sound completely doable. "Let's do something EVERY night/minute of the day!" Sounds good in theory, but not realistic in practicality. We are just bone tired: from working, working out, assembling beds from IKEA, dinners, shopping, drinks. The good life is EXHAUSTING and EXPENSIVE.

Nonetheless, for now, we are totally enjoying replacing our motherly/spousal chores with ME chores. It's so much more fun being tired and broke putting yourself first than tired and broke putting yourself last.

-Cathy