Circles

"I seem to have run in a great circle, 

and met myself again on the starting line." 

— Jeanette Winterson

In an effort to back there (wherever "there" is)-to get anywhere, really- Sky had asked me to be his girlfriend. I tried to remember the last actual date we'd had. (We've had some half-hearted date nights since this mess started, but they were about as cheerful as a funeral, so I can't exactly count them.) The last even sort of night out wasn't just the two of us, either. We did dress up and we did have a couple drinks, though- and that was the summertime, right after Amelia was born. It's been that long.

We tried last night. We've spent the past week or so moving boxes from one apartment to another, so we have not had any sort of quality time. I drove over to his place with Millie, and he cooked dinner while she went down for a nap. We were getting ready to start a movie when, like clockwork, she woke up. She was a fussy mess, probably beginning another round of teething. Scratch yet another date night attempt. I packed up her things and left.

So after I pouted and cried a lot, I decided there had to be a way to salvage the evening a little, and asked him to come over so we could do our couple's devotional. I guess there should be some sort of satisfaction that we can put a check mark in that box, but I felt frustrated and angry at the end of the night. It didn't help that most of the people I knew were out with friends or their significant others, laughing or dancing or drinking the night away. (And it's not Millie's fault- babysitting is the easy part, but finances and work schedules complicate things greatly.)

I can't remember the last time I felt like a wife, not just a mother. What does it feel like again? I always told my single self that there was more to life than dressing up and staying out late. I longed for a family. The joke's on me, though, as I still haven't been able to really get that family. I don't go to any of those old places that Sky and I used to go when we first met. The couple that I thought we were doesn't exist. It seems like a new couple we could learn to be will never be created, because there are too many things getting in the way.

I'm stuck in a no man's land.