Star light, star bright.

Since coming home, I want to start over, everywhere. Were you to extract a biopsy of my mind this week, you might see:

• start a diet


• read more


• quit blogging


• start a novel


• quit writing


• leave the country


• get a regular job


• start homeschooling


• relax more


• work harder

You would probably close me back up at this point, shake your head, and say, "I'm sorry. There's nothing we can do."

Yesterday, Patrick said he missed me, and I realized I haven't had time or space to miss him back. Finally, the rhetorical question, what's wrong with this picture, is answered. It has no white spaces.

I almost resented him for even having time to miss me. Who knows what or who I am missing under the clamor of domesticity?

In the mi(d)st of my ambivalence, the baby comes blazing through, so happy to have me back, he sings "HAP-PY BIRTH-DAY MOM-MMY" at the top of his lungs, off and on all day. And when he does, it is my birthday, and Christmas, and Easter Morning, too. Sunshine piercing fog. Starshine through the dark of night.

At the end of each bellowed chorus, he holds a tiny finger up to my mouth, his pewter eyes twinkling.

"Wish," he says.

And I wish I knew what to wish for.