Musings

I painted my nails yesterday, a shade of blue somewhere between navy and royal. I’ll love it until I don’t, and by then, it’s likely it will have stained my nails a bit, even with a strong base coat. I do my nails at home, mostly because of money. Also, I’m not sure when I would have the time to sit and have someone else do them.

I used to think it would be easier to be one of those people who always have the same color manicure. I’ve dabbled with pale neutrals, a gorgeous tomato red I return to again and again, oxblood (still my all-time favorite), almost black, gray, blue, raspberry. I can’t settle on any of them. I realize I don’t need to, but there’s part of me that likes the idea of not having to decide when it’s time to change the polish.

I know decision fatigue is real, but it’s hard to believe I can have that when I’m not in charge or a corporation or many decisions of major consequence.

When I opened the curtains to look into the Sunday morning quiet, I noticed my nails are definitely closer to royal or denim or something that isn’t navy at all. I second-guessed the choice, knowing I want to wear a black sweater today. No one cares what color is on my nails; I know this, yet it feels like I could have chosen better. Silly thoughts about something that will chip, maybe even today, something that will be removed within days, saturated cotton pads pulling the blue away, tossed into the garbage until I consider painting blue again.

Adding a teenager to car insurance costs money. Adding a car payment costs even more money. As Abbey’s birthday got closer, we talked about how to handle an additional driver in the house. Since the insurance cost isn’t negotiable, we talked about the possibility of sharing two cars between three drivers. The kids’ schools are a mile apart. I work about a mile from home. Ryan works in his home office, which means some days he doesn’t go outside until it’s time to get the mail. Three drivers, two cars. It made sense in theory.

It makes sense, for the most part, though we’re only a few days into her independent driving journey.

But today, when one of the cars went to the dance studio and the other drove to karate and then my mother-in-law’s house, I found myself at home without transportation.

Some Thursdays, when Ryan goes to have dinner with his mom, I don’t even think about leaving the house until it’s time to pick up one of the kids from one of their activities. I use the quiet time in the house — which happens for only a few brief hours each week — to catch up on laundry, eat something ridiculous like cookies and blackberries for dinner, and read. Other Thursdays I plan dinner with a friend, but today wasn’t one of those days.

Yet, as Ryan left with the second car, I suddenly looked at my to-do list for the week. My eyes rested on the few errands that involved leaving the house. Ok, really it was one errand: pick up a prescription, one that wouldn’t run out for at least a week. I didn’t need to do that tonight. I could easily do it tomorrow, or the next day, and things would still be absolutely fine.

I couldn’t stop returning to that little line item on my list, the one thing I couldn’t do without the car.

It’s not like everything else was finished, with one item lingering. In fact, I still haven’t folded the laundry, and I can’t even figure out where I’m supposed to order the eighth grade happy ad or whatever it’s called that I’ve been meaning to do for a few weeks. But the one thing I suddenly felt I needed to do was the one thing I couldn’t do, and it made me think about what having an available car truly means.

In the sprawling land of the Detroit suburbs, a car means freedom. Public transportation is spotty, at best, non-existent at worst. I can’t take the imaginary subway or walk to a corner drugstore, though I guess I could bike if it wouldn’t have snowed today. (I haven’t been on my bike in probably two years.) Ubering to CVS for medicine I don’t even need is silly.

So I sat on the couch and did a few other things. I cooked random stuff for people to make into lunches or dinners later. I dragged laundry up the stairs (but didn’t fold it). I ordered groceries I’ll pick up sometime tomorrow. I texted friends about plans for the long weekend.

I survived, of course, without a car for a couple of hours. Even now, I feel silly for reacting the way I did, and the feeling will fade. I wonder if it will return.

After I closed the computer on my post from yesterday, I started thinking again about why I keep revisiting this platform. For the most part, blogging has gone by the wayside of quicker, more visual platforms. Microblogs on Instagram. Reels and Tik Toks and snippets of thoughts reach people quickly, and allow readers/listeners to connect audio and visual cues to (sometimes) feel closer to people than writing does alone. Writers and bloggers I know have migrated to Substack. I’ve started an account there, though I haven’t waded into those waters yet.

I have different journals crowding my desk — reading logs and affirmations and stream of consciousness writing I basically toss in the recycling bin when I come to the end of a notebook, sometimes pulling out pages where an idea or two might make sense to explore. (I rarely explore. I should. I should do many things.)

When I revisited the idea of posting here, I didn’t want it to be another journal. I don’t know exactly what I wanted it to be, honestly. I knew I needed to get my butt back in the seat if I wanted to try to write again. By write, I mean get back to short stories, a novella, maybe that novel I have notes on and an idea for a major overhaul. The novel that sits unedited because it’s intimidating, and I’m unsure I remember how to do the one thing that used to come to me like breathing. I didn’t want to start the Substack yet, because I want that to be more polished, more readable, perhaps a little more important than the posts that keep ending up in the “musings” category.

It’s become a little like a journal.

I haven’t found my polish yet.

Still, I’m trying not to let too many days pass without logging into this space, without putting something on the screen. I’m hoping, though it feels fleeting most days, that one day I might look back and see these posts as bricks, small pavers, the pieces of the path that leads me back to fiction, to the space I love and hope to see again soon. Maybe that’s why I’m here.

Another snow day, and another day where I still found myself out and about. I wore Uggs, which is the wrong choice when the weather description is “wintry mix” and your weather is more mix than winter. I wore sunglasses, which is what you do when your eyes are sensitive to light and there’s snow everywhere.

I got to go to an appointment with my mom, which I don’t always have the chance to do since the school year started. It’s strange, at times, when we spent so many months in close proximity, and I knew everything about her body, her diagnosis, how she was eating, and when she wasn’t. Now we’re more in that in-between stage, where so many of our conversations center around treatment, but we’re back to talking about Other Things, too. I’m grateful for the Other Things talks.

I gave blood, which I used to do regularly and want to do regularly again. My feet got wet as I walked into the donation location, but it went smoothly, and I hope I’m back on track with something that can literally save lives without even taking an entire hour out of my day. (Plus I got to read while I waited, and I needed those minutes, because my library loan was set to take back my Kindle book by the end of the day.)

Greta Gerwig didn’t get nominated for Best Director for Barbie, which irritates me, on top of some things making me irate that I shouldn’t share because they’re not truly my worries to share. So I’ll let myself stew and maybe rant a little about patriarchy in Hollywood, because that feels safer than ranting about things over which I actually have some modicum of control.

Slush. It’s on the roads and my shoes and maybe a little in my brain tonight.

I left dirty dishes in the sink last night, rinsed, but not washed. Lots of random cooking led to a mid-day running of the dishwasher, and I didn’t feel like unloading and reloading before bed. I felt like I was getting a little sick, and I just wanted to go to sleep. This morning, I wished I would have done it last night, but that’s the thing about decisions of convenience — they can’t be undone.

Still, the sun shone off the snow through the kitchen window, and there are worse things than dirty dishes. My sore throat seems to have moved on to become a low key headache, and I’m waiting to see if caffeine helps or if I need another couch nap today. (I am never opposed to a little couch snooze, wrapped in cozy blankets, drifting off to the sounds of my family going about their day.)

I’m trying to plan my week — lunch with a friend, half days for the kids, finally scheduled a blood donation — all tucked between the regular work and kids’ activities. Eventually I’ll hit the treadmill, because I haven’t managed to embrace walks outside in the sub-freezing temperatures, despite my promises to do it each year. (I hate the feeling of being freezing, then both hot and cold at the same time.)

All of these random thoughts are a little pause, a way to take a breath before Monday comes.

Breathe.