9-10-2001

9̶-̶1̶0̶-̶2̶0̶0̶1̶   9-11-2001

I can’t sleep tonight. I just laid in bed for the past hour, keeping the cats awake with all my rolling around and shuffling. Something just feels wrong, like when you get that sense that you’ve forgotten something but you haven’t got a clue what it is. I decided maybe I’d better turn on the light and write something out, because that might tire me out a bit, or at least calm my mind down to the point where I can fall asleep. At the very least, it should be better than laying in bed and listening to the clock tick and the cars rushing past.

Here’s what I’ll do: I’ll plan what I’m going to do tomorrow here with as much detail as possible. I don’t know why, but whenever I do that in my head it helps me fall asleep. It’s probably because it takes my mind off the sleeping and lets me relax. So tomorrow, when I wake up, I’ll go to the bathroom first, and then out to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee. I’ll put in two spoonfuls of sugar and about one tablespoon of milk, because that’s how I always make it. I’ll probably drink that while I make my lunch and breakfast for the day. Tomorrow seems like an egg day: scrambled eggs for breakfast (with toast, of course; a breakfast without toast is boring), and hard boiled eggs for lunch, with extras of everything for the kids. Although, if I’m being realistic, I probably won’t have time to wait for the eggs to boil and cool in order to peel them and pack them up. It would probably be better if I just bought lunch tomorrow, and Sam and Beth probably wouldn’t mind doing the same. That would be a nice treat. It would get me out of the office, at the very least. Maybe I could convince Mandy to walk with me down to get lunch from that Subway around the corner. On second thought, though, I’ve got that meeting tomorrow in the North Tower with some of the upper-ups, 8:00 am sharp! It’s nothing too special, just talking about policy changes, but you already know I’ll be wearing my fancy pants, the ones mom bought me last year that billow out around the ankles. It’s important to look good for these types of things, you never know what the future might hold! It would be a blessing to be considered for any of the upcoming promotions, since Sam will be heading off to college soon and a raise would do wonders for us. Maybe I’d finally be able to get that leaky faucet in the bathroom looked at. Or maybe I should just do that anyways, who knows how much that thing is costing me on the water bills. Anyways, maybe Subway isn’t a good choice for lunch, since I think Mandy’s been trying to go vegetarian lately. She thinks it will be healthier for the baby, can you believe that? I think you should indulge yourself when you’re pregnant, at least that’s what I did and my babies have turned out alright so far, haven’t they? Despite everything they’ve been through, too!

Sometimes, though, I’m seized by an extreme fear that I’ve raised my kids wrong. I feel like I let them down by not having a man in the house, or that my fighting with Bill did irreversible damage on their developing psyches. That’s how serial killers are made, you know! But usually, I think that had I let Bill stick around things would have only gotten worse. Kicking him out was the best thing for all of us, and look at these kids now! Sam already getting college offers, and Beth paints like you’ve never seen! When I think about that, all I can feel is pride. Still, you’ve got to worry. My mom always said that that’s a mother’s job. You know, Beth came to me the other night crying, and I held her for a few minutes, and then I asked her what was wrong. She said it had suddenly hit her that I would die someday, and that she would never be able to hug me like that again. I laughed then, and told her that’s just how life is, and then I made her some hot chocolate, but really it broke my heart. You know, you spend your whole life building yourself into the person you think you want to be, and then building your children into, like, You 2.0, except the test run doesn’t start until after you’re locked out of the lab. That doesn’t make any sense. Basically, what I’m trying to say is I think she’ll be okay. I think both of them will be okay when I’m gone, I just need more time. I’ve worked so hard for both of them, you know, but I think I’ve still missed some things. Sometimes Sam talks about some scholarship he’s won and I haven’t got a clue when he applied to it. I need to be more involved with them. God, it’s just so hard to know if you’re screwing everything up! I’ll take them to the diner this weekend for breakfast, and we’ll just talk about them. It’ll be good for us, I think, to reconnect.

Anyways, see how I get off topic when I start talking about my plans? Maybe that’s what puts me to sleep, my meandering mind!  Still, it’s funny, the things I write about in these journals. Every so often I dig out all my old ones, and I laugh at how the things I wrote back in middle school compare to what I’m writing now. I was so boy-crazy back then! And so self-obsessed! What made me think that anyone would want to read what I had to say about how my teacher sounded when he had a cold, or how I was going to write such incredible books? It does make me a little sad, though, looking at what I write about now. I don’t wish for Prince Charming to come busting through the door, I just ask for a good night’s sleep. I ought to start writing again, or maybe attend some workshops, at least. Dreams only die if you let them, right? I don’t know. I wonder why I even write these journals in the first place. I’ve done it nearly every night since I was probably eight years old. Maybe it comes from that sense of forgetting something, or rather, the need to not be forgotten. I’ve always thought about getting famous and then biographers looking back at my journals to see what was really going on in my head, which would be funny, because they’d be reading this right now (In that case, hi!). But really, these pages just serve as a reminder that I’m a real person, with late nights and big dreams. When I’m 93 or whatever and flipping through these old books again, I hope I still like myself, or at least am proud.

Anyways, it’s really getting late now. It’s past midnight! Maybe I should go back and remark the date, for accuracy’s sake. Alright, I’ve done it. I’m going to try and get some sleep now, since I want to look fresh for that meeting! See you tomorrow, whoever’s reading this. Goodnight.