"this feels like a dream I have when I'm sleeping"

*** ***

Fable said this to my brother when we left her and Archer with him to go for a walk. It was the end of the week - the day before we got on an airplane and came home and when we walked into the house, freezing in our hoodies, David pulled me aside to tell me the story of Fable and how she looked up from the game as they were playing.

This feels like a dream I have when I'm sleeping.

I've felt off all week. There are so many reasons for this... Cooper's death has been extremely difficult for me and I can't not hear him at night. He howls to come in and when I get to the door he isn't there. But I swear I just heard...

We missed Archer's last week of 2nd grade and Fable's last week of preschool and I feel unresolved. Unfinished business in the form of folders overflowing with artwork and music sheets for the Spring recital Archer wasn't there to perform.

I'll perform for you anyway, Mom. He tells me and busts out the moves to My Girl.

I got so much honey that the bees envy me... 

I sing along and he tells me to stop.

"Shhhh, Mom."

"Sorrry."

My birthday's on Monday and I'll be thirty-two years old. The inverse of my most important year. Twenty-three was when I got pregnant, got married, gave birth to this family... what now? What are you doing now, Becca? What's your plan? What do you mean you don't have a plan?

A friend of mine recently struck gold. I cross my fingers. Keep writing. Keep going. You will get there someday. Do not envy. There is room for everyone, here. There is room for all of us and all of them and every idea. If you build it they will come. Keep building. Build as high as you can and do not be afraid of the fall...

I hate coming home from trips. I don't like to use the word "hate" but it's a problem, this strong disdain. A problem I forgot about because we travel so infrequently.... I used to come home from trips and immediately plan for the next one. And that was my life. That was what was important to me. Making enough money at home so that I could get back on an airplane and leave.

"I'm going to travel the world forever!" I used to say. Roots are like shackles. Rent's up, go forth! 

And every time I dip my foot in different waters I am paralyzed with the knowledge that I must remove said foot. I must back slowly toward home. And now I'm here. And I love here, but I also love leaving... it feels good to get outside. Let's all go outside! The lighthouse is that way. Just a little farther down the road, quick, get your shoes on!

***

Cape Cod was beautiful. Provincetown was a dream I had when I was sleeping. Fable was right. And going through these photos last night was like sitting under a bucket of smelling salts with faces. Because everyone was together then and now we're all back to being scattered around the country. In homes of our own working jobs like human beings that are real and not just make believe.

Sometimes it sucks to be real. It sucks to exist outside of the chalk drawing, wake up...

And now I'm awake and I'm here and it's summer time and I don't know what I'm doing with my life and my kids are all home and my dog isn't here and I can't tell which sounds are real and which are in my head and I want to run through Monday like a sprinkler.

Cooper's gone.

Vacation's over.

"See you at Christmas," my kids said to my sister as she hugged them goodbye.

Thirty-two.

Everything was perfect there... how do we go back? 

"We can't go back."

That's the shitty thing about adulthood... saying those four words over and over and calling ourselves broken records as we do and "what's a record, Mommy?"

If only we could go back... 

It's good to be home, I tell myself. Over and over until I remember those words are true. That the dreams we have when we're sleeping are what keep us going when we're awake.

Aren't they?

And yet...

Wouldn't it be amazing to buy a big camper and pack up the kids and just... ride.

Wake up!

We could sell our house and buy a B&B on the eastern seaboard somewhere. Live in a sandy old house with wicker chairs... 

Wake. Up.

Let's move into a lighthouse and grow beards and drink soup and sleep on the floor in sleeping bags until we die. 

WAKE UPPPP!

I'm up, I'm up! Okay, okay.

I'm up.

I'm up and we're up. At normal times now. Bodies once again acclimated to the changes and the changing back. And now we have all of these incredible moments we get to wet our hair with as we go about our days. As we work toward new goals, tear out old pages, look forward to day trips and the beaches where the sun sets instead of rises, the end.

Meanwhile, the roots hang loose around our ankles like friendship bracelets. Goodnight, until tomorrow... 

But it was so beautiful there and everyone was so happy.

"Dream on. Dream away," someone once said. And that someone was Color Me Badd, sure. But oh, that melody plays in my head at the moment. In all of its early 90s harmonious glory.

***

GGC