routine

There is such a pattern to my hours:

Find sleep too late and wake too early, turn on radio, make tea, dress for success, drive to work, apply lipstick in rearview mirror, slink into staff room hoping no one talks to me while I jam copy machine, refill orange mug, lock myself in washroom and pray to make it through the day.

And then I make it through the day.

Through all the impertinent angry boys and all the doughy white girls with squinty eyes and bad skin, who wear the hickies on their neck as a badge of achievement...proof positive in their eyes that they are desirable and succesful in some way.

School ends, drag A. on long run along river (you can run from problems or make problems run with you), feed cow, make dinner, clean kitchen, do homework with P & A and try to keep the peace. And then off to bed. Repeat. Again.

And somehow all this routine has loosened something in me when I was expecting it to wind me up tighter. I move/think/speak with a purpose hitherto buried beneath so much sand and secondguessing that I was sinking and taking you down with me.