An Unexpected Wave

I was cleaning up the supper dishes tonight and the house was quiet. We've done most of the work on JT's mammal report and so he had gone upstairs to play. The kittens weren't in their usual underfoot position. I'm pretty well caught up on the laundry and the bathrooms don't quite need cleaning yet and so the night stretches in front of me as I load the dishwasher. I've plenty to do, of course. Books to read, some television shows I've been meaning to watch, friends I can call, papers to grade.

But what I really want is to crawl in bed with someone who loves me best. Maybe cuddle and talk about our day, our dreams, the boy that we are raising.

I feel like that's in the distant past now. And I ask myself if it ever really existed. And I plead with the universe to take these memories, these longings and just put them somewhere. Anywhere, really. Just get them out of my reach.