On My Own

Song of Solomon 6:1…

“Where has your lover gone, most beautiful of women? Which way did your lover turn?”

My lover has gone down to Florida, to Panama City Beach, to frolic in the water, and on the sands, with six children and an enormous amount of sunscreen. He shall return to me in six days, yea, on the seventh day he shall return if he becometh weary while driving.

Our fifteen-year-old daughter has been begging for years to go to Florida on spring break.   Last week, out of the blue, hubby agreed to take her.  They also decided to take our teenaged son, goddaughter, niece, and our two preschoolers.  Since hubby was willing to wrangle the kids alone, and I have absolutely no desire to be anywhere near Panama City Beach during spring break, I begged off, citing my reason as the need for uninterrupted time to work on a writing project.

Early Saturday morning, I waved as they pulled out of the driveway.  There is always so much initial excitement involved in a road trip, that I was momentarily seized with the desire to join them.  But then I remembered the reality.  Fourteen hours in a car with four teenagers, two preschoolers, and a man who insists on listening only to bluegrass music.  Not to mention, they are all staying in one hotel room.  Granted, it sleeps six, but there are seven of them.

And there is the sunscreen issue.  My very least favorite parenting duty is slathering sunscreen onto wiggly, ticklish children under the age of six, and then worrying about whether or not it’s time to reapply.

I have never been completely and totally alone at home for the night, let alone for a whole week!  I hardly knew where to start.  I keep forgetting that I am free to do whatever I please, whenever I please.  But then it hits me again, and I get all giddy and stressed out.  So much to do, and only six days to do it!

My first choice of activity was to scan old photos and post them on Facebook.  I didn’t really intend to spend five hours doing it, but once I got started I couldn’t stop.  Not only that, I didn’t have to stop! I reminded myself that no one was waiting on me to do anything else.  There wasn’t even anyone expecting me to come up with dinner later. So, I scanned for five hours.

Then I cleaned the kitchen.  Really, really cleaned it.  I organized some cabinets, gave the floor a good scrubbing, and even polished the countertops.  There was a lot more pleasure in the doing because I knew it would stay clean for a whole week.  Indeed, I’m on day five and it still looks just as nice as it did on day one.  When my crew arrives home tomorrow, it will be demolished in twenty minutes.   But it will be a happy demolition, because I do miss them a little bit.

I’ve always said that if I had only myself to get ready, I would never be late to church.  Turns out, I was wrong.  Even on my own, I was still five minutes late.  But I blame it on the fact that I am stuck driving my son’s pickup truck, and the seats don’t adjust.  I fiddled with it for five minutes before making the decision to drive with my tip-toes.  After church, I opted not to go to lunch with friends because, after all, I really did need to get started on that writing project.

Since I am writing about my international travels with children, it made sense to watch National Lampoon’s European Vacation both times it came on.  Somehow, it also made sense to watch three episodes of Cupcake Wars.   But when Sunday came to a close, I felt good about my writing progress, and went to bed too exhausted to hear any bumps in the night.

The rest of the week I have been dedicated to my project, only allowing time for a short wedding planning session with a friend and an early dinner at Bob Evan’s.  When it hit me that I was free to do as I please, I also got a pedicure. And a couple of tanning sessions.  And I took a short break from my writing to go to the movies.  And when I had a sudden urge to lay down in the backyard and watch clouds float through the sky, I did that too.  But I have made some serious progress on my writing, and as soon as I’m done getting my hair cut and colored today, I bet I’ll wrap it up in no time!