2002-01-17-12:16 p.m.

Some days just don't have any joy in them.

Andrew's fondest wish, he says, is to grow up and get big so he can punch me in the stomach. He hates me, he says. I know that soon he'll be sitting in my lap absently touching my hair and I'll ask him if he's my angel and he'll say yes. But that's not happening today.

It takes every bit of energy I have to get the children started on their schoolwork. They talk to each other right when one of them has gotten a good start. Daniel hears an airplane outside and tells everyone, "Plane!" and they all rush outside to see it. I have to sit there waiting for them instead of doing something I really would rather do and I wonder how nice it must be to have a job and work in a place where everyone has the same goals and they all work together instead of one person having to push the whole group forward and uphill.

I forgot to make coffee.

I'm lonesome.

I forgot to pick up Abby on time.

The kids are fighting. Again.

I go to the window to open the blinds and let in the sun. It's one of those little things that I look forward to doing every day, a little thing that becomes big on a day like this. Today there's no sun. It's overcast and all I can see through the window is bare tree branches and gray sky. Tomorrow I'll probably wake up happy and full of purpose and I'll turn the wand on the blinds and the sun will hit me full in the face so that I have to look away. It will warm the carpet where I walk in my bare feet and someone will come in and hug me and say, Momma, you're the best. But it's not that way today.

Today is just gray and sad and empty. And I feel like giving up, but if I did no one would even know.

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