Quiet Birthday in Day to Day

True to my promise to myself, I’ve been in the real world. When I wasn’t asleep, that is.

No mental wandering into my internal story. No seeking out the escapism of my fantasy.

You see, everyone has something that is a weakness. Food, sex, drugs, games, gossip. I’ve dabbled in all that at times, too. But my ongoing struggle with “addiction” comes from my own mind. My need to escape is so strong I turn it into another world where I can live and love and pretend I belong in this world.

Sometimes, others visit. They sometimes come back around, but for the most part, this isn’t for anyone else. It’s my internal world. And it is better than all the other ways I’ve tried to escape. So it is hard for me to stay away from it. Even when things in my own life are okay, I need this place inside me that I created. I need that place. And sometimes others come in and visit me there, and that makes it even better and harder to get away from.

But I wanted to remain purely me, today.

So I did. I slept next to my son, who fell asleep before me. It was amazingly simple and good. As he, being my younger of the two at 12, is beginning to leave me behind, it is rare. My older, the 18 year old, of course has moved on from needing time with me like that. As it should be. But sometimes, I still get a glimpse of the life I used to have. Today was one of those days.

It didn’t rain, after all, but I needed the sleep. Therefore, I didn’t go up to the amusement park. I think this was better for me, in the end.

Of course, now, I have to go to the DMV and do my tags, and then get my oil changed and tires rotated, this week. Maybe I’ll do that Thursday. (This state gives you until the end of your birth month to do the car tag renewal.) I should look into getting us new passports, before they go back to school, too. I didn’t know full passports were so expensive. I also need to set up driving lessons for the 18 year old, now that he FINALLY got his temps.

But today, I had nothing to do, and I did exactly that!