I HAVE TO RUN
January 9, 2020
Hi, I’m Maya. I’m a blogger, storyteller, writer, editor. I’m a mother of three girls. Living and loving my midlife crisis.
Not after the kids, or between work and the house. I mean, I do, of course, but when I say “I have to run,” it’s not because I’m looking for a nice way to finish a long phone conversation, or “I have to run” when I realize my daughter is waiting for me to pick her up from school and I completely forgot.
It was the end of a six-week period in which my guy was on-call, and I could hardly remember my name. During these weeks, the most my girls get to see of him is a glimpse of his shadow when they wake up in the middle of the night crying because they miss him.
“But mom, you’re making your meatball sauce, right? And the chicken soup!”. I was standing in line to use the payphone. The girl ahead of me was about to finish her conversation with home when she remembered to ask, just at the last minute, for one more treat she hoped to get when she returned home from a 5-day sleep-away camp: her mom’s cooking.
Two weeks ago, my oldest performed in a school-wide ceremony. Parents are not usually invited to these kinds of ceremonies, but since she was performing, I received a direct order to come watch her. One of the greatest perks of working from home is the ability to be available to watch the girls’ performances and shows, no matter how small of a part they actually have in them.
I was 38 years old, with 3 girls in the backseat of my car, 13 years of marital bliss, an impressive resume of several management positions, 4 years into our overseas adventure, and less than a year to our return date, when I decided I needed to know what I wanted to be when I grow up.
“Mom, this afternoon I’m going to have a birthday party at our house. I invited all of my preschool friends, and they will be here at 4 pm. Can I get a Barbie doll?”. I was almost 5 years old, and the colors that changed on my mom’s face when I announced this wonderful news reminded me of the colorful stickers I used on the invitations I’d handed out to my friends.
“G-E-T O-U-T O-F M-Y R-O-O-M!!”. For the first time in 11 years, it was me who was doing the screaming. But this time, instead of a door slam following the invective, I could hear an excited giggle and a door quietly closed behind the intruder.
