The Lost Weekend

Well.  The kids and the husband have left for Atlanta for the weekend.  I suddenly feel like John Lennon on his escapades with Harry Nilsson when Yoko was away.  My fingers are drumming at the possibilities.  Of course, there will be nothing as riotous as that famous weekend of John Lennon’s – no cocaine, no boozin’ it up till the morning light, no regretable affairs.. I just don’t have that in me anymore.  Not that I ever did.  I was only mildly wild when I was young and kidless.  I had my moments though.  But, for the most part, I usually was the girl who wanted to sit and play records, drink wine and talk about books.  Yup.  That’s me.  The middle-aged-before-her-time-geek lady.  This entry is a good example – I mean, who the hell else knows about John Lennon’s lost weekend for christ’s sake.  I do.  I do because I spent countless hours in my room reading the biography of every person that I thought was cool when I was a kid and teenager.  I happened to read all of John Lennon’s biographies.  Every single one.  God.  I was such a geek.

Which brings me back to this weekend.  I like to think that I will go out and pack the weekend with every concert and movie that I haven’t been able to see for the last six years.  Fancy dinners and lots of friends around me. But I am more in the frame of mind to just chill out and pretend that this is my normal life.  I don’t want to rush out and get wild – I want to pretend like I am everyone else that I always envy all those days when I have a thousand things to do and only time to do twelve.  I want, more than anything, to just exhale and look around and catch up with the space I have been moving so quickly within for so long.  I want to actually be able to listen to a song all the way through, and I mean really listen. I want to have an idle conversation with a stranger or a friend.  I just want to be present.  I want to see and hear without forcing myself to hurry away.  I will enjoy this.  Not because I am without my family, who are the loves of my life.  But because I am back with myself again.  Just me.