* This post was written during ChicagoNow’s monthly Blogapalooz-Hour. We were given 60 minutes and a topic to write about: “Write about your tomorrow. Not figuratively, literally write about anything that you hope, fear, believe, expect — anything — that you may experience tomorrow.”
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow I will wake up, take a shower, make myself a cup of coffee and pack a light suitcase. I will leave the house and drive my car to the airport. Once there, I will hop on a plane that will take me to another country. Upon arrival, I will meet a foreign man, who will be waiting for me. And we will live ever after as if there is no tomorrow.
Doesn’t it sound great?
Except that that’s not my life. That’s the life I could have had if I had chosen different paths. But I didn’t, and today is Wednesday, and I live in Chicago, and I have three kids and no exciting plans of any kind. Actually, I have no plans of my own. Maybe that coffee is the only thing that I will do for myself all day long. Because, let’s be honest, with three little boys a shower is not something that can be taken for granted.
I will feed my baby several times. For that, I will use my body to produce milk, and food from the fridge that he will most likely choose not to eat, unless it involves strawberries. I will try to tidy this madhouse I live in, but I will probably give up after one hour of work with not much progress to see. Anyway, it was not going to last.
I will Skype with my mom for exactly one hour. This is the high of her day, so, no matter what, I do it. Just so she has something to look forward to. And so the picky baby eats, which he does better if he is seeing his grandparents, whom he has never met in person, on the computer screen.
At some point I will have lunch. This will be my only quiet time of the day. I may be able to read the paper. Or I may totally waste the paper time on Facebook.
Exactly at 2:55 I will put the baby in his car seat, and wait for his middle brother to arrive, so I can put him in his car seat too. The three of us will drive to the park by their older brother’s school so we can wait to pick him up from his engineering class (no mistakes here, he is still 8). From there, we will sit in traffic for one hour while we drive to speech therapy. Once there I will get my guilty pleasure of the week. A tall Caramel Frappé from McDonalds. I know. No shame here.
After another hour drive we will get back home to cook dinner, argue some, do homework, baths, bedtime. If I am lucky, I may go to a friend’s house for a beer. After all, every girl needs her nights out. Even mom girls.
And much earlier than I would care to admit, I will be back in bed. Dreaming with that other me who is sitting by the sea in a fancy bar, drinking something sophisticated with a cherry in it, all dressed up, wearing high heels, looking taller, and younger, and way more care free, waiting for the mysterious foreign man. Dreaming with the time when words like guilty and pleasure involved things way more entertaining than sugary coffee. Dreaming with the me I chose not to be.
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