Finding Your Quiet Place...

It happened yesterday afternoon as I was driving the kids home after picking up N at school. They were all talking at once--OK so maybe they weren't all talking. Some were screaming instead. We were sitting in traffic for what seemed like forever. I thought my head might explode from all the noise around me. I was trying to think of what we needed at the grocery store. And wondering how my car gets so trashed so quickly. And when I might have a chance to get the oil changed. And trying to remember to nod every few seconds so that whoever was talking would think  know I was listening. And then their voices all started to meld together, and started to take on a different sound. Like the teacher in Charlie Brown.

Waa waa...waa waa waaa...waa waa waa waaa...waa waa waa....

Suddenly, I wasn't in the car anymore. I was somewhere else. I'd like to tell you that I imagined myself in a beach chair on a tropical island, sipping a very large, very strong drink with an umbrella in it, but that would be a lie. The truth is, I saw myself sitting in a corner, my knees tucked up to my chest, rocking back and forth as I banged my head against the wall.

Rocking and banging. Banging and rocking. As the noise continued around me.

Waa waa...waa waa waaa...waa waa waa waaa...waa waa waa

Eventually the car in front of us moved, and I was forced to leave my moment in the corner. But it made me realize something, that moment.

I liked it there.

Once we got home and snacks were doled out, I retreated to the laundry room. I hate doing laundry. And yet, I love doing laundry. The laundry room is often the only place in my house where no one follows me, and that's only because there's still a baby gate at the top of the stairs which lead to the laundry room. Jimmy keeps asking why we still have that gate. He threatens to get rid of it. A few times, he has even gotten it as far as the back door. But then I see him, and I tell him that I'm worried that O will fall down the stairs. He looks at me funny, and tells me that O is almost three. 

And then I give him the look. The look that says I let you get rid of the high chair, and the pack and play, and even the adorable teddy bear mobile that I had a ridiculous emotional attachment to, but get rid of that baby gate, and one of us will be sleeping on the couch until our children are in college.

So, you know, he puts the gate back.

Even though it's broken, and if you look closely, you will see that it's usually hanging on by just one, increasingly loose eight-year-old drywall bolt. But the kids don't know this. They just know that it's a gate, and that it's hard to open. So they don't try. And the one who can open it knows that if she finds me when I'm in the laundry room, I will give her laundry to fold.

So she stays away.

Smart girl.

There is, of course, always laundry to be done, so while I may occasionally use the laundry room as an escape from something, I am really just escaping into piles of clothes, and baskets of socks, and stacks of towels. Sometimes, with all those piles, and baskets, and stacks, it seems that the laundry room isn't much of an escape at all.

Rather, it's an exercise in futility. Wash laundry. Dry laundry. Fold laundry. Wash more laundry. Dry more laundry. Fold more laundry. Wash some of the clothes that I just washed yesterday. Dry the same clothes. Fold the same clothes.

Let's not even talk about putting them away, because frequently, that just doesn't happen.

It's my retreat. And yet, it most certainly is not a retreat.

Except that it is.

Because, yesterday, as I piled more towels on top of the already ridiculously high pile of towels, it dawned on me.

 Finally, after fifteen years of marriage, and eight years of motherhood, and three children, I have discovered the secret to maternal fulfillment.

If the piles are big enough, no one can find you.