WhirlyQ

Now that it’s been several hours, my back muscles are tightening into bands of pain. The ribs beneath are pushing back in protest in their tender, bruised state. Right elbow is whimpering for attention but hey, you’re only abraded, you’ll live. Right calf (ext.), the early troublemaker, is soldiering on. It’s the back. From neck to mid, in long swaths of ache.

The thing is, I was doing so well. After a long week in the sticky heat, a long week of driving (to the camp bus pickup, from the camp bus dropoff, to daycare, back home from daycare, to and from the rediculously far away new special ed program after the regular van driver called in sick - all told putting at least 250 miles on the car just transporting kids around), a long week of not enough sleep, and hustling four tired kids out the door by 7:45-8 am (in the summer, people), a long week made longer by Dex’s day trip to NYC when he arrived home at 11:30 pm and Dex’s dinner with his boss when he arrived home at 9:45 pm —- after all that, plus potty training, I still had enough sanity and gumption to load three tired, sweaty kids into the car and head off to the woods of north central Massachusetts for the family campfire and end-of-week farewell at Edward’s scout camp.

Dex. Was stuck at work. Boss in town and all.

So … after a 45 minute drive into the wooded boonies, made palatable by delicious Honda air conditioning, we arrived at camp. I asked the counselor directing traffic how far we’d have to walk. “Oh, it’s not far,” she said brightly. Remember that.

I pull into the parking area, which is up a short but rutted and rocky road. I unload the kids, spray them down with Cutter’s, heft a sleepy Mae onto my hip, take Davey’s hand, and exhort Jules to stick close to me. We descend into the woods and follow a dirt path toward the distant sound of kids. Not far, I am thinking. Jules runs a few yards ahead of me, Davey comes along gamely but he needs to go slowly over the very rocky path. It’s tough work and we stop to let people pass us. Soon Mae is awake enough and wants to walk. I put her down with a sigh of relief, she runs off to join her sister and….. splat. She trips and begins to cry. Back in my arms for a thankfully quick snuggle and she’s down and off again.

We pick along this way for a bit. Soon Davey lags. He wants to stop, pulling back on my hand as he does when he’s fatigued. I pick him up. It’s the only way. If he refuses to walk, there’s nothing else I can do. Threats to leave him? Har. He’d sit there and watch my back recede in the distance. Believe me. So up he goes, all 52 pounds of him.

Did I mention he weighs 52 pounds? And here’s the thing about low muscle tone (his). It makes 52 pounds feel like 68 pounds. I used to routinely haul 50 pound bags of horse feed on my shoulders so I know the difference. And believe me, Davey’s no bag of grain. He’s cuter. And less appetizing to horses.

After carrying my grain boy son for a while, a man - a cruel, hateful man - passes us coming down from camp. He says “you’re halfway there!” I snort. “What? Are you serious?” This is when I debate turning around and trudging back down the path just so I can slap Little Miss Not Far. But I have a scout waiting for us somewhere up ahead. And as we plow on, stepping over roots, skirting rocks, the building I’d seen up the path, the rustic brown embodiment of relief, turned out to be empty and shut tight and so obviously not our destination. But no mind. We must keep on. We pass the cabin and soon leave it behind. We keep moving.

We come to a fork in the path. I persuade Davey to walk for bit. But which way do we go. I hear happy commotion off to our right. But the path straight ahead seems more used. Eh. I decide to follow the voices (see, I was never a scout because they wouldn’t let girls join Cub Scouts to do all the cool fun stuff like make fires and camp and whittle, unlike the Girl Scouts who had to cook and sew and do crafty things)(things I’d enjoy doing now)(as long as I got to whittle too). Oh, my point - my point was I was never a scout but still my woodsy sense lead me to choose the right and correct path.

We found the camp and Edward at last and spent the next 45 minutes or so sitting on wooden benches on a steep hill watching the boys and the counselors enact skits and sing songs. I held Davey in my lap most of the time, with his legs criss-crossed to keep him from kicking the kid in front of us. Every now and then I’d notice that the girls were picking up handfuls of the thick powdery dirt that coated the area and were pouring it on the bench and each other. The dust… oh the dust. Within seconds of sitting down, we were all filthy. Edward’s backpack and the diaper bag were coated.

The farewell program/bonfire ended and we left Dust Hill for a quick tour of camp. Edward was excited to show us the places he’d enjoyed all week. And since they were all in the general direction of our car, I let him lead us around a bit. Still, by the time we rejoined the main path, we were all exhausted and once again I was carrying a tired Davey who’d spent the last hundred yards or so walking with his eyes closed. Jules wanted me to carry her too. Edward, being a good scout and an even better brother, let her ride on his back for a while (provided I carry his backpack, which I considered a good trade).

Here we are, trudging along the path, picking our way. Edward is in the lead, his sisters close behind, finding some spurt of little girl energy that fades with puberty, and I am bringing up the rear, carrying Davey. The diaper bag in slung over my shoulder, my camera — my backup camera that may be on its last legs but still takes a decent picture — is around my neck. And we’re tired and dirty and hungry but we’re doing ok. Pretty well, considering, and somewhere beneath my physical exhaustion, I am pleased.

We are getting close. I remember this marsh. The vibrant green marsh grass. I snap a few pictures as we walk. Then…

Then suddenly my right foot does this thing. A bendy sort of thing that amounts to failure at its prime objective and I am going down. I fall to my right. Davey is still in my arms, I am holding him, then WHAM I hit and he pops out of my arms and slams chest down in the dirt. “SHIT!” I yell. I prop up on one arm, stunned. Davey is propped on his elbows, not making a sound. I swear again. Then the cry rises up from my son and he is wailing. Edward kneels beside him. “Are you ok? Are you ok?” Jules and Mae come to us. “Mommy, are you ok?”

I stand up and my brain reconnects to my muscles and I scoop Davey into my arms and hold him tight. He wails non-stop. Tears spring from the dirt on my cheeks and I am suddenly filled with such…… what? What is it? This is where I lose the words because there is nothing that can neatly summarize what I am feeling in that moment. There must be a word for this but it eludes me.

I am at once mad and weary and depleted and finished. It’s complex, this feeling, because it is similar to what I have felt many times over the past several years, but this time there’s a new twist. I stand there with my wailing son, my other children hovering around me, looking off across the brilliant green marsh grass and willing myself not to lose control and start sobbing. And I don’t. I shake my head and turn back to the kids and muster enough cheer to get them moving along again. But in that moment, before I turn, there is something new and I don’t have a name for it.

This is all about our need and desire to move and to make major changes in the way we live. It’s about not being anywhere close to family. About not having the right house. About not living on a safe road. About Dex being gone 60+ hours a week, every week for the past 2 years. About me raising four kids — one with developmental delays, toddler twins, and a smart, sweet, but demanding kid — nearly by myself. About Dex and I being so exhausted that we can barely muster the energy, let alone enthusiasm, to be the kind of parents we need to be once the weekend rolls around. About feeling old and physically worn out.

It’s about waiting and waiting and waiting. And then waiting some more for things to change just enough to get us the hell out of here and on with our lives. It’s about not knowing where and when, then knowing (agreeing on) where but still not knowing when.

It’s about sucking it up and getting on with life every day. And hitting my limit and sucking it up again. And hitting my limit and sucking it up again. And again and again and again. Pushing myself beyond what I think I can take, emotionally, physically, mentally, over and over. And knowing I will do it again.

That is what it has been about every time I’ve hit this point, after a day of whining kids and yelling mom and all hell breaking lose and me screaming internally that I CAN’T TAKE THIS ANYMORE and us all finally cooling down and bedtime rolling around and things settling back into a managable semblance of normal.

Today was different. Today this point came unexpectedly, in a hard slam to the ground. We were doing ok. Tired, dusty, but ok. I had done this thing, this physically arduous thing that was so important to my son, and we’d had a good time, and we were so close to the end, to making it through successfully, with no yelling or stress, and then I stumble and go down. And the fall, it was just a fall. Not a big deal in the end but standing there in the shady woods, looking out over that picture-perfect marsh, it seemed…

In those moments before I have been angry. Furious and wounded and raging at the insanity of our situation. Today I was mad, but not at Dex because he wasn’t there to help me. I was mad at us, at our whole way of being, at the circumstances that made it impossible for him to be there, or for me to pick up the phone a week ago and ask my mom and dad to come along.

We are hitting the two-year mark of this job/commute situation. Perhaps it is realizing that we are standing at the cusp of a third year, with the ever-shifting promise for some kind of resolution dangling ahead of us. I hope that promise does not turn out to be empty and shut tight and so obviously not our destination.