I'm Sick Of Me

How do people live with me?? I have been living alone for the past almost 4 weeks, and I'm sick of me.

When my son was 8, I brought him to my hometown for a month during the summer. We were both very excited. I had planned (in my head) for his two uncles to spend lots time with him. A good childhood friend of mine who still lived at home also had a son late in life. He was a year older. My son had met and spent time with him 2 summers prior, so I was thrilled that he was going to also spend lots of time (in my head) with his “best friend” (as my son called him).

People in New England, and I sure anywhere that it gets cold and snowy in winter, start looking forward to summer the Thursday just after our second holiest of high holidays, St. Patrick’s Day. It is the officially sanctioned day New Englanders open the season of dreaming about lying on the beach. I’ll bet you that more people in New England fish out their last year’s bathing suits as reminders and go on diets March 18th, than the combined number of people around the world who begin their diets on January 1st. It’s tradition. It gets us through the icy winds of March, the freakish snowstorms of April, and the torrential rains in May.

My family home is a particularly great place to be in the summertime. The beaches are great. The empty streets of the winter are jammed with happy, smiling people who dock their boats, eat at our restaurants, and speak with heavy foreign accents. The islanders never have to travel (and most don’t) because the world comes to them every summer.

Just an overall fun exciting place to be.

Unless it rains.

Every few years, Newport has one of “those” summers when moms with school age kids get up everyday before sunrise and pray straight through until lunch for the clouds and the dew-soaked fog to clear. We make lots of statements in very shrill voices like, “ I see the sun peeking through!” or “The fog will burn away before lunch!” as an incantation or a New England style fire dance to the gods of summer. It is our collective feeble attempt to make it come true.

During “those” summers, the universe usually just responds with more rain.

So, my month with my son at The City By The Sea occurred during one of “those” summers, and for my son and I, it rained everyday from the day we flew in until 31 grueling days later when we flew out. It rained so much that the sewers on the island started backing up into the ocean, so even if the sun came out, it would have been hard to ignore the WARNING! POSSIBLE ECOLI! signs posted at every beach.

My son’s uncles only spent one afternoon with him, and his “best friend” had no interest in a boy he met two summers prior.

It was my son and me…for four weeks….straight…in the rain.

So we hiked at the Norman Bird Sanctuary in the rain and went to every beach on the island in the rain (which I love on an occasional basis). We went around the drive to the cliffs and ate a picnic lunch watching the waves crashing against the rocks(in the car) in the rain. We went bowling in the rain, to the movies in the rain, we walked along Thames Street and window shopped in the rain, and every night we shared a full-sized bed in the rain. There was no swimming, and definitely no lying carefree on the beach.

My 8 year-old son and I together pretty much 24/7 for 31 days.

At one point about a three weeks in, I turned to my son and said, “No offense, Hon, but I’m sick of you.” Without the slightest hesitation, he turned to me and replied, “No offense, Mom, but I’m sick of you too.”

So that makes two of us, because right now I am sick of me, too.

I have never in my life lived alone this long. Of course, I see my son and talk to him daily, but there is no other breathing body in my house. I specifically miss my son, but I also miss looking into the eyes of someone I love, exchanging the reciprocity of his breath, and knowing I should probably think twice before I fart in bed.

It hurts and feels odd, but I think it is a good thing. The winter thaw in my heart has arrived right on schedule. I have every confidence in the world that it’s going to be a sunny summer.