Same as Always

This morning I found the cd case that had all the discs I burned during my year eight months in Connecticut. I've been ripping them to my iTunes library here at work. Listening to them totally takes me right back there. Driving the Toyota Sienna everywhere - basically living out of it - the trees. Oh, I miss the trees so much. I miss doing something that made a difference every day. I miss playing "mom."

I got a holiday card from them two days ago... I can't believe how much the kids have grown in two years. I want to go back, I want to go visit before they move on so much they completely forget me. I sent them Beatles RockBand for the xbox Cory got the Christmas after I left as a belated birthday/holiday present. I wanted them to remember all the times we spent playing Rock Band, just the four of us, Cory and Claudia fighting over who got to play the drums until Claude got halfway through the first song and remembered she hated playing the drums. We'd always have her sing. She was good at it. It was awesome. Oh, I miss those kids. I miss feeling like a crucial part of something. Knowing that things wouldn't get done without me, knowing that I got to - and was capable - of taking care of them. Making sure they were okay, and healthy and happy and having fun.

Now I'm back here. Useless and accessory, stuck at home because of stupid choices from my early 20s that screwed my credit. Working a job that takes no brains, that doesn't want or value creativity or ability. My... all of me... wishes I could go back to that year. Go back to being needed and wanted and challenged every day and being able to go to bed at the end of the day with a sense of fulfillment and accomplishment. I think that's why I have so many dreams about babies lately. I ache to be needed like that again, by someone, anyone. I know the things that I'm best suited for. And it's not packing boxes and beings stuck at home like a perpetual 12 year old.

I'm trying not to be whiny, I don't want to sound whiny, but I want to try and express how I feel and what I'm thinking today. Or, this morning. Mornings are slow at work, usually. And I'm avoiding work because I'm tired and I ache everywhere and it's cold. I feel so old. I'll be 30 in a little more than three years. How did I get to here? I remember being 11, and imagining myself at 21, coming back to visit the family from college, with a car and a boyfriend, tall and gorgeous with long brown hair... stylish and smart and funny... and here I am, 27 and a college drop-out, an ART MAJOR drop-out, short, with short blonde hair and still no car, no boyfriend. Not just visiting home, but stuck at home...

Nevermind. I can't write like this. It's all just the same. The same thing every time. These words aren't new.

"Sometimes I lie awake at night, and I ask, 'Where have I gone wrong'. 

Then a voice says to me, 'This is going to take more than one night." 

- Charlie Brown