No room for the blues

Yesterday, we found out that instead of going to Guatemala and bringing Madelena home in the coming weeks, we instead get to stay here, be sucker punched repeatedly in the head by the news that NO, NO, there are more paperwork snafus that send our case packing and down the steps of the PGN bruised, battered and in need of attention. I feel much the same way, flattened by the shock and dismay and grief. Our Summer of Love is off, and no good news on when we can reschedule and in what season.

I'm working today, though what I really want to do is get back in bed and turn off the phones and either eat an entire pizza washed down with a bottle of wine and some Xanax or give up food and drink entirely. It's a tough call. But as the siren's song of deep depression calls me, I am reminded of one of my favorite quotes from The Anniversary Party, a sometimes navel-gazing but well-constructed film written by Jennifer Jason Leigh and Alan Cummings:

"Oh God, you're so lucky you don't have kids. When you have kids you can't stick your head in the oven. You can't take a handful of Percodan if you want to, or slit your wrists. You can't do yourself in. Kids ROB you of that option. Trust me."

As a mother, there is no time for self-involved grief, no matter how necessary. There are little people who need your love and attention and sobriety. You really can't put your head in the oven, no matter how strong the draw, because you'll inevitably be interrupted any way by some demand for milk, help with on getting on the big toilet, a piercing cry of I WANNA WATCH BACKYARDIGANS or other knee-high distractions that even the wafting gas can't subdue.

And so I console myself with ratty sweats, no make up and an overall general malaise that will not preclude me from being a loving mom, no matter how much I want to just bail on life for a few days and wallow in my discontent. Instead we'll order a small plain cheese pizza, toast with non-fat milk and watch The Heffalump Movie for the 15th time while snuggling under our fleece penguin blanket. Perhaps that's better than a head in the oven or under the covers, and slightly less likely to cause brain damage...other than the song that refuses to leave your head for days afterward, leaving you humming "the terrible thing about Heffalumps" in public places.