Carrie Link

Ahhhhhhhhhh

I am a new woman, in only one day (really, 4 hours, but who's counting?). My new favorite holiday? Labor Day, People! Christmas Schmistmas! That's the holiday where I knock myself out for MONTHS, only to have it all over in 20 minutes! Not my Labor Day, Baby, no, my Labor Day comes after I knock myself out for months to be rewarded with nine months of bliss! Oh sure, I love my children beyond measure. I just don't remember ever signing up for the 24/7 365 deal. Where is the 40-hour a week mother schedule? Sign me up for that one! I could actually be a good mother Monday through Friday, 9-5, possibly even great, but WHO among us is a good mother all the live-long day/week/month/year after excruciating year?

Yesterday my kids began 7th and 4th grades. It was a teaser day, really, over at 12:00. By the time I did all the first day of school rituals, shared a cup of coffee with old and new friends at the hospitality reception, it was nine o'clock. I saw mother after mother with tears in their eyes. Tears. Please, would someone tell me what is sad about dropping your kids off at school when you are going to see them in three hours, now, and we just found out next week they have two days off already? I don't get it. One mother e-mailed me and said she'd be the mom at drop-off with Vodka in her coffee cup, and tears in her eyes. I told her to look up when she got there, 'cause I'd be the one dancing naked on the roof.

During our hospitality hour a few friends and I were discussing this, two with tears in their eyes, two of us with barely concealed glee. We decided that it was not so much sadness as easily expressed emotion. The two of us gleeful moms readily admitted we just weren't the crying type.

"Yea," said one of the criers to my fellow gleeful mom, "but you cry at "Snowdogs! You have displaced emotion!"

I've been chewing on that ever since. I am also guilty of displaced emotion, but mine comes in the form of rage, not tears. I can get outraged at the drop of the hat, but sad? Not so much. It takes a lot to make me cry, it's just such an exhausting and messy production. Rage, though, that'll fire you up! I'm thinking a tea/coffee metaphor is coming!

Rage is for us caffeine junkies, the ones that like to get "up". Tears are for the tea lovers, the ones that like to come "down". What do you think? Pure brilliance or pure b.s.? I'll let you decide, I gotta go now anyway, only one cup in me, and that ain't gonna do it for all I have to get fired up about today!