Left and Bereft…

And my husband is off to New York again, a red-eye, leaving in about half an hour. I have been trying not to fall into the pattern where the day before he leaves I am tense, grouchy, and not even conscious of why until I realize I am wondering whether I will be able to hold it together while he’s gone, that I will be completely netless.

Among the hardest things to leave in Dallas was the network of people whom I could comfortably easily ask for help, people whose kids I had watched at night when there was a trip to the emergency room for back pain, the child whose father was undergoing treatment for lymphoma and I could happily offer to take over her mother’s mornings working in the co-op preschool when she needed it, the economy of favors that wasn’t about expecting anything back but more, realizing that if I were in need, I had people ready and willing, lined up to help, the friend who watched the older boys when Rainer was born, the neighbor across the street who would bring her three year old over to feed the fish when we were out of town… When you register your kids for school, you have to fill out an emergency contact number, someone who will be responsible for your kids if they cannot get hold of you, and, while we’ve met some great people in Portland, had some lovely evenings out, the odd playdate here and there (which is harder to manage when you get to four kids spread out between 2 and 10) I feel funny asking, um, would you be our emergency contact?

Anyway, when I have the bed to myself, it’s hard to fall asleep, and I don’t want to be grumpy and tired in the morning. I have to get son #2 off to drama camp early tomorrow. With the self-discipline of the sister who wants her ice cream cone to last the longest, we are reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows aloud, as a family, clapping hands over ears so as to avoid any and all spoilers, and will suspend the reading until Raven is back, so I am going to shut the laptop, and try and race through a bit of re-reading of the Half-Blood Prince. I’ve forgotten a scandalous number of details, I think in the initial read there was such a rush to find out what happens that I could disregard numerous references to Ollivander the wandmaker going missing, and other such stuff that wasn’t tying in to the main plot. But spending an hour reading HP7 out loud to the boys and then retreating to read HP6 silently for myself is a bit confusing. Have to find something short and fun to read out loud for the next three nights to the boys while their dad is gone.