Years like days are steadfast just as the boss felt it. Dad is jaded ask why dad why? Those were at least 2 typing sentences I remember from when I took typing in college. Yes, I took typing in college - don't ask. Or ask but don't expect an answer. Maybe I wanted to grow up to be a secretary -- ever think of that?

You took typing in college? Then why is your typing still so rubbish?
Ha! I knew you'd ask that question. The fact is that something that happened the better part of 20 years ago means nothing with the better part of 20 years of undisciplined madness in between. So there.

Anyway back at the ranch, as I go through boxes of stuff - yes I'm back to the big chaos, or the big sort, or the sorting of the big chaos ( I really need a term for what I'm doing) I realize that what happened only a moment ago is now years. Years. Years. Wait let me say that again. Years ago. Gah!
I want to ask how that happens, or keeps happening but that's a little like asking how one keeps turning up pregnant. I know the answer I just feel that the real answer is too ephemeral to get a hold of. I blinked, I missed it. Only a moment ago....

Some days I really like my day to day life. I like my moments with the kids, or breakfasts, or dinners, or trips to the park. However, sometimes I wish I'd wake up and see the bigger picture. Or at least have the mental decency to notice years slipping by.
This has slapped me in the face many times in the last few days. As the kids finish another school year. As I have a tendency to compare my youngest child to my oldest child on a daily basis and I'm realizing that my youngest seems to be catching up with my oldest. As I sort boxes, open one that smells of England and realize that life is so far away from me now it is like it never happened. Other than British birth certificates there are days when I feel like I can't prove England existed at all to me.
That's a mental hurdle for me though, because I spent so much of my life there, strew so many skin cells, and felt so completely and solidly trapped umm...permanently there I have a hard time waking up some YEARS later to discover that it is gone. It's not only gone, damnit, it is becoming outdated. It might even have changed by the time I get back. Though this is Britain we're talking about so I don't count on it.

Then, worse moments, like when I open a box that was actually packed in my storage before I left for England. Or most recently I opened a box (where the hell was it hiding all this time) that was packed before I moved to New Mexico the first time. That is now...umm - not good with mental math today...12 years ago? Is that right? Is someone else counting this for me so I can keep track of it? What the hell man? I left for a minute. I left America for England with the intention of spending a year. I left England for New Mexico with the intention of spending a couple months. Is this a joke?

But wait, I was there, conscious even. I remember days if you pin me down and ask me about them. So why is this so distressing? I should be able to say that a couple thousand days does indeed equal that amount of time and this comes as a shock to no one. Well at least not to people who buy calendars or can do math in their heads. Show offs.

I don't know, in answer to your/my question. I don't know, it just does distress me. It distresses me more when I hang out with my older friends who have grown children and think - this is me. The next time I blink this is me. That leads to some kind of mental panic. I want to wake up. Wake up now!
Where the hell is that lottery win, so I can focus on every loving minute of my life? Huh? How am I supposed to just trudge though this cold? Kinda cruel really, it really is.
Pretty sure that that was a sentence fragment but whatever.

I can't stop going through boxes. Some part of me hopes to have them all sorted soon so the past will stop sneaking up on me in a stalking manner. Like a stalking horse, or a kitten in stocking feet. I hope the next 12 or was it 13, years just slows the freak down though. I really am tired of waking up every few years in a Dr. Who bad tardis like fashion. Whoa - and where are we today? 1989 you say? Oh, whoops, got the nine and 8 mixed up. Oh - sorry no, that's 2009, no wait...

So to catch you up, in case you were wondering. The youngest is 3plus. The next is 6 (or 5 as I like to call him), followed by 8 (but wait he was only just 2 and so cute) and the oldest is going to be a sophomore in high school this fall. I remember when she was a baby, and more so I remember when she started school and I was the youngest Mom there. Well, at least I'm not the oldest at my youngest's classes, that'll be the day.
We've had 2 babies in each country in which we've lived in the last 2 decades and that's approaching that for the summing up. Sorry - I know I shouldn't blog when I'm tired. Maybe I'll go through and fix these some day.

I'm sorting through discs right now and putting old pop music on Leif's ipod as he has a love of that music. However, the kids weren't raised on classic television and I ask myself regularly if I've damaged them somehow or dropped the ball in historical accuracy on that count. Maybe if I get a lot of time off over the summer I'll torture them to cultural satisfaction.

I worry about the day they stop climbing in bed with me and saying "Mommee, I had a bad dream" or "Mommee, I just need a cuddle." Someone tell me that won't happen. Or at least when it does I'll be ready.
With any luck I'll get caught up on life and I won't be so sick or shocked the next time I look up and realize 4 years have gone by. As 4 years of life in America is fast approaching. Pretty soon I won't be able to use my "I'm not from around here" excuse any longer for why I'm so utterly clueless on a day to day basis. I'll have to think of a new one.

Anyway - more later, I do and or did, and or will, have other posts I've missed over the last few weeks. I'll catch up soon enough (sensing a theme here)