strike one

I dropped the kids off at my mom's on Saturday with the intent to have the house to myself, sort through some of Jeff's stuff, and move the bedrooms around (I'm tired of stepping on dinky cars when I step out of bed, finding boogies wiped above my headboard on the wall and having the kids and their friends use my bed as a tent/trampoline/table).
I drove away with a list of productive things that were going to be accomplished while they were away. I started the hour and a half drive home excited and nervous. As I drove, I grew progressively more....angry and sad. Bitter.
I was going home to an empty house. Quiet and desolate. I was going to be moving a king sized bed. Alone.
No matter how loud I turned the stereo, I knew it wouldn't drown out the palpable silence. No amount of hot water from the shower would soften the ache and need to be touched. No promise of organization and unclutteredness could outweigh the sadness I was feeling removing Jeff's 'stuff'.
I know all this thinking was not positive thinking. I realize that I was not giving myself 'happy thoughts' and that I was actually feeling quite sorry for myself....and angry.
This anger made me feel reckless and wild. I brainstormed things I could do to release some of this furious energy. Unfortunately, it's hard to find ways to be reckless while attempting to keep yourself alive. As a mother of two kids that needs to preserve her life in an effort to preserve some sort of life for them, I could.....drive with my gas cap open? Walk with traffic rather than against? Paint the house puce (I don't actually know what colour that is. I think it's pink but it sounds more like something you'd vomit up.) Eat cold cuts past their due date?
Visions of racing a motor bike, picking fights with larger women, writing rude and descriptive words on the cop shop, flashing my baseballs-in-socks breasts at drivers while standing on a overpass, fire up the chainsaw without the proper safety gear, jumping from a ferry to see if I make it to the water and am able to swim flash through my head.
All these tantalizing ideas are dashed. Too risky. Too embarassing. Too cliche.
Instead, I went home. I stared at Jeff's dresser and told him he was an ass. That at this moment, I was again mad enough to spit nails at him. Why didn't he listen? Why didn't he go to the doctor? I know I come to this place often. I know I should redirect my thinking. But I can't. I need to feel this or the melancholy emptiness will break me.
I sat in the house for an eternity (which in real-time must have been about 1 hour) and screamed this song along with Martha Wainright. *lots of swearing in this one - don't listen to it if you are offended by swearing.*
Then, I got in my car and I drove away from my quiet and empty house. I drove until I got to the town where I feel safe, close to Jeff and comfortable. I found friends. I found peace. I found peace.
I'm home now. I can't wait for my little ones to come back. To wrap my arms around their warm little bodies and see their drawings of tigers and hear their stories of Daddy playing ball in the sky with Eli making the lightning and thunder come. To listen to their noises as they obliviously crash through the house. To be needed. To be wanted. To be loved.