I washed Daisy's purple down comforter. There was a small pile of kitten poop on it, crusted on one corner, so I scraped the doody off and layered the comforter into the washing machine and hoped for the best. I'd gotten home 20 minutes before, and knew my aunt and uncle (actually second cousin once removed and her husband, called for simplicity's sake as well as pile of unforced love "aunt" and "uncle") would be at our new house by two. They're nothing if not punctual, and they're many many more things than merely punctual. Daisy was "stressed"; I'd denied her wish to take a bath, directing her instead to unload the car and unpack her suitcase, which, in spite of her "HIGH STRESS LEVEL, God, Mom!" she managed to do rapidly and competently. I swept and mopped the floor and fed the cats and threw my belongings on my bed. There was nothing to be done in my bedroom, but I did hide the condoms and I did shove the beer into the fridge.
I'm tired. Cripes and dear donkey, I'm tired, but I earned this tired: I'm not depressed-and-tired, nor am I tired from a day spent forlornly picking things up, putting them down, perusing my to-do list and staring off into space. I'm tired from sleeping poorly on two pushed-together couches, tired from a wonderful breakfast with my best friend; I'm tired from picking up my daughter from my mother's house, and tired from seeing my mother's house for the first time in seven years. I'm tired from the drive, I'm tired from the hasty lick-and-promise clean-up of my beloved house. I'm tired from feeding and conversing with my family, from the trip to Olive Garden. I'm tired from a full day, and it feels better than just being lazy tired, tired of worrying that I wasted a day.
I hung the comforter on the fence separating the neighbor's house from mine. I'm still angry at the apartment house on the other side, because they are the source of the weird grit-and-dirt crop circles on my painstakingly mowed back lawn. I haven't met any of my new neighbors except for the developmentally delayed daughter of one of my coworkers, who I bumped into when I was unloading yet another Forester-full of boxes and miscellanea, and who told me her kid lived next door then asked if I'd be willing to be a safe place for her. Well, of course I would. I haven't seen her kid yet, though, not since. I like the way the purple comforter looks, hanging on the fence; it won't be dry till tomorrow, if it doesn't rain.
Tomorrow I want to just not think of it. Funny when something happens, and it consumes my mind in ways even I can't really divide. I don't think there is anything to examine, but force of habit and my own personality spur me to pick, and pick, and pick at it: what happened? Why did it happen? Why do I want it to happen again? Too much in my mind. Too much in my head. I want to just not-feel again, for a while, which answers the last question. I want to act naturally, but acting naturally got me into this stasis, and I'm tired of the stasis. I'll think of the purple comforter, instead--the clean comforter. I'll remember how pretty I felt today, and yesterday, which was a gift and an unblemished one...I felt pretty for me, not pretty because I'd been told by him, but even I must admit I felt pretty because of him.
But now that I've spewed it out, it feels better.
