Desire

I wake up every morning full of desire.

Desire to not yell at my kids today, to finally get to the end of my to-do list, to make it to the grocery store and buy something other than frozen lasagna, wine, and cheerios.

Desire to change out of yoga pants, put on something sexy and womanly and feel desired by a man who puts his hand on the small of your back while he leads you through a dimly lit restaurant.

Usually I achieve none of these things.

I wake up late almost always, and am rushing everyone around to the places and things they need to be at or doing.

I'm cursing my unmopped floors every time I step on a mysterious crunchy something with my bare feet, as I pour thankless bowls of cereal and make coffee.

I'm telling Lainie for the 100th time to go brush her teeth, and explaining to Jackson why a long sleeve shirt and heavy sweater aren't appropriate attire for an 80 degree day.

I'm staring at an inbox full of emails I won't respond to as quickly as I'd like, and trying to remember if I sent out all the CD's and client packages this week that I was supposed to.

I'm thinking up small paragraphs, clever sentences, endearing turns of phrase for the book I've always wanted to write - the book I will most likely never write.

I'm cursing the happy couples who are sitting close to each other in Starbucks on Friday afternoons, or splitting a cheeseburger during lunch on Wednesday, smiling and touching each other's wrists and knowing that those quiet conversations will be there when they get home.

I come home to hungry/tired/grumpy/fighting/needy kids who don't understand that I'm doing this alone. Who are too young to appreciate the hard, important work that running a business and running a house and cleaning paint brushes and washing little faces and little hands and never being told thank you, is.

They want pizza and they want to go out to dinner and they want my time and they want my attention and I want attention too, and usually we settle for frozen lasagna and NOBODY TALK DURING DINNER IF YOU CAN'T TALK WITHOUT FIGHTING OR GIVING ME ATTITUDE.

I pour the leftover wine and get in bed alone.

Every day I wake up full of desire for things I won't accomplish, things I won't get done, things I won't have.

I breath out my desire in the same breath that I beg the kids to stop fighting with, or read Jack a bedtime story with.

Some days though, it is enough to listen to all the little things that go on inside their little brains, and relish the excited tone they tell it all to me with.

It is enough to feel two tiny arms wrap around my neck.

To talk to Lainie after Jack goes to bed and remember how fast she's growing up.

Some days the desire that runs like a vein through all living women, since the beginning of time, to accomplish everything, to do everything, and to be loved and wanted at the same time - to be both a great mother and still a passionate, womanly lover - takes a back seat to knowing I chose this, and it's ok.

It's spilled cereal and sinks full of dirty dishes and kids that never seem to be happy with what you do for them, but it's also love, and memory, and knowing you're the most important person in the world to two tiny people, who don't care that you never change out of your yoga pants or that the floor isn't clean.

They just want to be alive and happy and near you and tell you about their day.