It happened a week ago.
It didn’t creep up like I would be used to, or maybe because I missed it the last time it was due, I didn’t see it coming. The warning was either missing or too subtle. Who knows?
All I know is that I went from sensible midnight bedtimes to looking at the clock when I saw the sun rising. My credit card that was supposed to remain virginally untouched is within $100 of its max; thankfully, a new savings program was launched in a fury one evening as I glimpsed the possibility of future financial security being mine.
I haven’t been eating much, excepting for litres of ice cream, binges of chips and hummus and rice cakes. Countless mugs of tea follow the ones before, my teeth grind against each other, I’m always moving and fidgeting.
My interest in Isobel ranges back and forth between near amazement and a complete lack of any. I don’t show her this – I’m acting with her sometimes, when the want isn’t there – I’m lying to her. It makes me feel dirty to do so – lie that I give a shit when really, I’d like to be creating a budget for her college fund – but it’s necessary for her mental health. Movies have been happening a lot and her hyperactive nature, something she nearly always has, not just during four times a year like her mother, makes me anxious. Seeing her jumping, dancing, always twisting and moving her body exhausts me.
But I don’t sleep or rest.
I’m sucking in so much right now, reading between one and five books a day, planning, making lists, drawing schematics and clusters like back in the day when elementary teachers tried to teach us as children the proper way to brainstorm. There is always a storm in my mind.
Cleaning is sporadic, fevered, intense. Must be done immediately when the urge comes, but the urge isn’t as prevalent as I’m used to. I haven’t yet been reduced to a toothbrush and baking soda, on my hands and knees. I have swept the floors four times today.
I’ve both figured out and reassessed as impossible the next four years of Isobel’s and my lives. What I will do for work, what I will do for her schooling, which books I will buy her to learn from a desk in our apartment. What the desk will look like and how much it will cost me to order from Ikea and have it delivered. When I can have that desk delivered and how I will rearrange our bedroom to fit in it, so therefore the other furniture I’ll have to buy, in part to match, in part to create more space and storage within the small confines of our less-than-100-square-feet bedroom.
She’ll need her own bed. I’ll start sleeping on the futon. Maybe the Expedit shelves for her. In white, not that shitty wood-tone. Clean. It will look so clean. Maybe I’ll cover the cubbies with self-adhesive wallpaper. A royal blue. I should make her curtains to match. We need a closet organizer.
I haven’t been cooking much. I’ve been baking banana bread, muffins, things with the fruit that she’s suddenly not willing to eat whole. We’ve been going through a lot of Bob’s Red Mill All-Purpose Gluten-Free Flour. At $10 a pop, and dinners out – a lot of sushi and breakfast for dinner – I’ve overspent our usual grocery budget by $200. Which is to say that right now, I’ve spent a month’s worth of groceries within two weeks.
I’m walking down the street, when I can motivate myself to go outside, and I’m seeking eyes. I find men looking me, implish smiles and extended gazes. I’m smiling back. I’m feeling a lightness which only goes hand-in-hand with being wanted, being hungry, having an appetite.
I could have swallowed him whole on Saturday night, I was so ravenous. Instead, I gasped with the wonder of his own hunger. These messages in my head, the feverish thoughts and what ifs led to a conversation between the two of us. I was open, unguarded. He was. He’s been waiting for me to be, for the wall to come down. When he left on Sunday, he kissed me and told me he’d miss me. The evening before, with my ankles safely tucked into the joints of his strong arms, he lifted my legs, telling me they were beautiful. That he’s always loved them. He loved that I let him kiss me. That I didn’t bite him and draw blood, literally or figuratively. Do I have a boyfriend, now? Will I want him still, this maybe-it-could-work-if-we-have-our-own-lives-and-apartments relationship, after I come down?
I’m going to write! I’m going to launch a business! No. Two.
My furniture has moved twice. I have daily headaches and this is the first time in the six months since I quit drinking it that I miss coffee. I haven’t been drinking more alcohol, but I have been smoking more cigarettes – that’s kind of a catch-22.
I want to run! Go back the the gym! Gain weight! Love my returned flat stomach and slightly obvious hipbones. Move to Europe. A commune. In with another single mom so that we can share child-rearing and house-care duties and give the ultimate form of educated support we each need.
I want to get married. A puppy. Move into an apartment without a bedroom, with a larger kitchen and walk-in closet that could double as a bedroom for Isobel. Find a basement suite that I can remake in exactly the image I want, with a backyard for Isobel to play in and shared laundry only 30 feet away.
I can’t focus on much, but when I can, I’m hyper focused and little else exists in the world. Makes mommying a bitch, so I find myself avoiding doing anything, lest I get too caught up in it and you know, forget about to care about her.
This is my own little version of mania.
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Now playing: David Usher – The Music
via FoxyTunes
