leaving

Somehow I have an extra five minutes before leaving for BlogHer ’12 in New York City. I’m sitting with the boys in the living room while Elsie and Daddy sleep. I’ve been up too many times in the night and then up too early and that’s just how it is, so I won’t go on and on about the sick in our house and what a trying week we’ve had. It was hard. I’ll just keep it at that. Death by a million paper cuts.

I’m going to drive away in a few minutes with two bags and in one of them is my breast pump. (Sorry male readers.) (All three of you.) (You might want to not finish this little paragraph.) I’ll be hiding here and there on my days of travel and while at the conference, while running the Serenity Suite, to pump. And I know I’ll cry and I know that there is nothing bad about me going. But I’ll feel bad. I have been mostly inside this house, attached to Elsie Jane and my boys for well over a year. The demands of life kept me from getting away for even a full day. I need this. I cannot put into words how badly I need to see the faces of my soul friends and do something that is mine and feels good. So badly.

I come back to life when I sit with my friends and that has been missing for the most part since we moved. So I’m going and I know it’s actually best for all of us. Elsie isn’t nursing all that much anymore. She’s starting that disinterested stage of weaning and I know she’s going to be okay. She’s so attached to her Daddy and her brothers, too. She will look for me and sometimes she’ll cry for me and I will feel bad. People will tell me not to feel bad, but I’m just going to feel bad. It’s okay. It’s okay to just feel what you feel, maybe even get a little overwhelmed and dramatic about it so you can free it with a good cry. I just feel what I feel.

Just allowing myself to be in pain big or small causes a stretching in my heart-gut, my soul, and like yoga, that’s good.

Like I said before, I’ll look back on this as just a tiny little weekend away. No bigs. But while I live it, I’m going to go from euphoric happiness at the sight of lovely friends and then I’ll head down the emotional roller coaster hill toward that empty feeling I have when I’m away from my kids.

I have to get up and go out the door now, but I want to stay right here with Miles on one side and Asher on the other, waiting for Elsie to wake up like always. But I want to go and I need to go and so I go.

Peace.

P.S. If you’re going to BlogHer ’12, tweet me any old time to see if I’m in the Serenity Suite, where I will be A LOT. I can’t wait to meet you/see you again!