On the Saturday of our return, the neighborhood knocked, with work day jobs and Halloween festivities distracting me from a household of hunger and dirt and early frost. To stand in the chaos of competing demands and find its order turned my into Sleeping Beastly during Sunday's sermon.
In my five hours without children today, I stutter over words, and what I am supposed to say. My body revs and jitters with what might happen if another person needs me. I want someone else to send them away with some good excuse. I even asked my writing coach to decide my goals, because I am empty.
Tonight the kids and I head to Chicago to celebrate a close friends entrance into her thirties, and I long for a "rebirth of wonder" and a living faith that drives me to rejoicing.
