Here I Am*

If you can't say somethin' nice, then don't say nothin' at all, right? Not a bad motto. Perhaps a bit misleading as applied to the last few weeks though. My silence hasn't been all about keeping mum on ickiness. It's been an up and down month - emotionally, mentally, logistically. I pretty much had to choose between staying afloat in the real world or the blog one. I kept thinking I'd have enough balance any day now to do both and then I'd get that sinking feeling again. I think I'm past the roughest waters for sure now. Our boyos were home this weekend (actually more than the weekend - the 8th thru the 13th) for the first time since court. It was hard in some ways but mostly great. They are in good space. We finally got to celebrate Iain's birthday - only 2 months late, that. I got some good one on one time with each of them. We had their friends over. We went to a great family party at a friend's house. We watched football together. They played Game (D& D) and tossed the football around with Unky Dunky. We had easy going fun. It was hard to put them on the plane Monday night, but I think I'm more centered than I have been. I needed to have my arms around them. I'm still trying to figure out my days without them as my organizing principle. I feel resentful that I have to do that and guilty that I'm capable of it. I think that puts me right on the map of normal mom who's just lost custody of her kids.

I'm working to catch up with all y'all. I've got a set amount of time to be online every day so it's going to take me a week or more to work through my list but I've really missed being a part of things. I've missed hearing about your races and training highs and lows and general community stuff! I haven't forgotten about my languishing, half-written RR. (It was worth waiting a couple of days for but I don't know if it's worth a month of silence! I'll post it soon anyway.) I'm working on how to figure out what my "off season" goals are (and also pondering whether one race really counts as a season). To sum up: I'm baaaack (sorta).

PS - *Donna is a much faster cyclist than I am and on a lot of our longer rides she'll get pretty far ahead of me. After a while she'll either slow up or outright stop to wait for me. As I'm catching up I always call out in this singsong voice "Here I am!" It makes her smile every time. Even when she's crabby and bike hungry. How cool is that?

PPS - Thanks for the kind comments, text messages, and emails checking up on me. Y'all rock!