Inspiration Monday – Drifting

One of the things everyone notices when they stop going to school or work regularly is that the days of the week start to blur. There are no external clues any more as to what day it is, and I find I can sit here pondering the question for a completely unreasonable length of time. In some ways, of course, it doesn’t matter. But it matters to the rest of the world – if I put the bins out on a Friday, they won’t be collected, and if I’d turned up to the doctor’s yesterday, they would have sent me away. Which is why I try to keep my blog posts on a schedule, to at least have some markers on the week. But that requires me to know what day it is. Today, I think, it’s Thursday. So here’s the latest InMon story, with thanks to BeKindRewrite for the prompt. As ever, I’d love to hear your feedback.

Drifting

I am the invisible woman.

Joel drifts through life, oblivious. His dinner is always on the table, his shoes clean, his bins empty. He probably thinks we have a maid service to keep everything clean and tidy. Or maybe he thinks the boys are actually elves. More like imps, of course. They wouldn’t know one end of a broom from the other.

They sail along with every little whim catered to, just like their father. “Mum, I need a costume for the party tonight!” “It’s in your closet, Ben.” “Mum, I have to take homemade cakes for the sale tomorrow!” “Just cooling on the rack, Andrew.”

The perfect housewife, the perfect mother.

I know the drill, my own mother trained me in it. Of course, the perfect mother doesn’t pander to her daughters for fear of spoiling them, so I’ve been making way for men my whole life. I wish I’d had girls.

But tonight when they get home, their little ships are going to drift into the rocks. Tonight, their lighthouse will have gone out. Because tonight the keeper has a date. Not with another man, I’ve had enough of those for a lifetime. And not with a woman, I can’t quite get my head around that possibility. I suppose I’m old-fashioned, but you can’t change everything at once.

I’ll be back. I can’t leave them forever, especially when the fault is mine – I should never have let them take advantage of me. But for the next few weeks, I’m going to do my own sort of drifting.

I’ve left a note: it felt like I was writing a suicide letter. But I’m not going to die, I’m going to come alive.