I hobbled home late Tuesday morning after a rather restful long weekend in the private clinic, or the horse-pee-tale I was incarcerated in, depending on whichever one of my personalities is talking at the moment. I’m alive, and according to the lovely, gentle, viciously kind kidney specialist in charge of my treatment, there is Absolutely Nothing Wrong With Me. This is good news, right? So why is it depressing me?

Probably because it only adds fuel to the ‘You’re Nuts’ fire the other adult living in the house has been burning.

Granted, my problems are probably psychosomatic, indicative of nothing more than an unwillingness to want to wake up in the morning to face yet another day of non-stop battles with every human being under my roof, lingering fatigue from three back-to-back (should have slept that way, wouldn’t have had this problem) pregnancies and cesareans, and the endless tedium that is my life. Endless. As in without end.

Which is probably why, as I was loading my bag and stuffing my mountain of pillows (got lots of strange looks for that, imagine thinking French clinic/hospital pillows, also known as bags of lint, are not exactly comfortable or, dare I say it, pillow-y), I had to struggle with whether or not to drive home or cut my losses and run fast and far.

Don’t let the title of this post fool ya—I’m not that free.

So I came home, in a less-than-happy mood, where I was met by my whining son (“I don’t want to go home, I’m not happy there”), my whirling dervish of a daughter, the smiling-even-though-I’m-miserable baby, and the ever-ungracious-even-after-four-days-of-my-absence husband, who tried, in his way, to fix me something called lunch (half-heated, dried out pork chops left over from the week before and cheese and spinach pastries—which counts as a vegetable in his mind because hey! Spinach! It’s green!). Ugh! There was fresh bread at least.

Mr. Doc-Does-Nothing-All-Day presided over the rest of the afternoon with such an air of superiority that by the time the clock rolled around to English Conversation Group Hour, I was gasping for air. I finished up the thing we started last week, a ‘lesson’ of sorts on the word shit and all it’s uses, because seriously, is there any other as-useful word in the English language? I didn’t think so. Then we all rolled out to the local bistro for alcohol and food, and a bit of private conversation with one of the men on the long list of Men I’d Leave It All For—the long list, mind you, because if he were on the short list, I’d be writing this from a private jet on my way to Tahiti. After lots of sympathy and understanding, I drove back home, grumbled, finished my nightly routine and fell into bed, exhausted after just an afternoon of my Real Life.

I need to find a new one.

Wednesday I convinced the Other Half to let me out of the house for some shopping time. I didn’t buy anything other than the usual groceries, but was, for once, free to wander the aisles of one of those shops that I’d never have had time to go in had it been a normal day. Even though I wasn’t stalling (seriously, I wasn’t, I swear), I made it back in time to unpack the car, put said groceries away, try to explain that, in my opinion at least, the price I paid for those big, fat, red, juicy strawberries was not expensive even if it was twice that of another fruit like, say, bananas—which are rather subsidized, now aren’t they?, help get the monkeys in their baths, take pictures of girl monkeys being PRECIOUS (and for just a while not regretting the previous day’s choice) before having to take off for the once-a-month meeting with the tourism office that I simply could not miss.

What a GOOD THING that turned out to be! Not only did my proposal for a pleasant afternoon activity in mid-May get approved without any hassles whatsoever, but I got to head out with one of my favorite colleagues for a nice plate of Turkish chicken paprika. Miam Miam! At the restaurant we stumbled upon a rather striking young man (oh my God, I’m talking like I am OLD) of 30 (I am OLD!!) of whom I had heard much but never met face-to-face. Apparently I too have a bit of a reputation as he’d heard plenty about me as well. And thus we finally met. Conversation was nice, although I have to admit I was more than a bit lost from the word go, but adult conversation, even if it is way above my level, is still adult conversation and I managed to get through dinner without once mentioning or hearing the words “pipi” or “caca”. Life was good. And while I was happy to drive home feeling the warm, happy glow of Adult Conversation, Mr. Historian had to go and make it even better by paying for my meal AND (!!!!!) inviting me out for a beer if I didn’t need to get home—which I did, and the bars were all closed anyway, but STILL! I got asked out for a drink—as a friend of course—but still—no one asks out married mothers of three without making them extremely very happy.

Do you see how sad my life has become? People are nice to me and it drives me insanely happy… I’m pathetic.

So I had good dreams, and woke in a better mood than even four days of rest has provided. And honestly, during the time I’ve been home, Mr. Man-thing and I have been talking and working on a few issues, trying to get things straightened out because neither of us wants to live this way, nor do we really like the idea of any type of separation. And it’s getting slowly better around here. Slowly, like s l o w l y, with lots of long pauses between each letter. But forward progress is forward progress, and we are seeing the shrink again on Monday, and she’ll tell him he’s a schmuck and things will really be better…for me. Oh, and today, after FIVE YEARS of pissing and moaning, bitching and complaining, Mr. Man-thing finally fixed the electricity in the kids’ room, so maybe we won’t have to take another kid back to the doctor with electrical burns. We’ll call that gravy.