Mommy Is a Sinner

Well, this weekend marked both the end of my first week of putting the little angel in daycare and my first weekend trip away from her. My college roommates and I threw a shower in another large, Midwestern city for my friend C., who is due in August with her first baby. As one of the shower's hostesses, I should've thought harder about the timing. Hell's bells.

So it was with considerable trepidation that I left the little angel in her daddy's arms and drove to the airport, where my flight turned out to be delayed for over an hour due to earlier weather in said other, known-for-horrible-weather Midwestern city. Okay, it's Chicago. I finally arrived there around 10:30. My friend S. came to pick me up and drove me around the city from the south side to get to a northern suburb. It took about ten years. Okay, it was an hour and a half. Please, people - why must a metro area be so large???

Anyway, the weekend was great. With most of the spouses left at home, we girls hung out and drank (except C., of course) copious amounts of alcohol, smoked the occasionally ciggie and practiced other such debauchery. In fact, it was a little twilight zone to realize I was hanging out with the same people and doing pretty much the same things I had done ten years ago, except now I have a little angel, C. is eight months pregnant and almost everyone is married. But for a few hours, I kind of forgot about all that. For a few hours, I remembered all the people I have been that led up to the one who cried on the way to the airport because the baby wasn't in the car.

My beloved called at 8:15 the next morning. He had been up since six, had fed the little angel, changed her and was driving to church. I was blearingly hung-over and wishing for a large glass of water in my sleep. In my sleep-induced stupidity, I could barely make out who he was, what baby he was talking about and why there was a cat other than Sybil sitting on my feet. Once I remembered, though, I was achingly lonely for the little angel and quite frustrated I was still in Chicago.

This weekend, I guess, was a lesson in how many people we can be at once, and how odd it is when several realities slam together like railroad cars at a changing station. I'm glad the one I'm living in now seemed the most appealing when it was all said and done.