Our kitchen table

You might think just because I’ve got a career, happy family, and blue eyes that I’ve got it all. You might think because I scored an agent and the greatest friends known to man that I’m perfectly content and satisfied. You might think that I have no idea what it feels like to be lonely, frustrated, or irregular.

You’d be wrong.

I struggle like everyone else through this miserable economy, disheartening political climate and one depressing ecological disaster after another. I understand what it’s like to deal with challenging children while addressing personal crises and the indignities of dry skin. The other day, after working all day and feeling overwhelmed by the silence of editors and headhunters, saddened by setbacks in the Gulf, Tallahassee, and Washington, not to mention the pressure of an entire house that needs packing, I laid my head on the kitchen table and cried.

As tears fell on the cherry wood surface, I thought about this setting. Just a few nights earlier, cherished friends had traveled from Colorado Springs, Palm Bay, and Carrollwood to spend time with us and celebrate Husband’s 42nd birthday. The same table absorbing my sorrow had recently absorbed the condensation of about twelve different alcoholic beverages while old friends told six hours worth of stories and gave birth to a few more.

I wiped my face, avoided a few phone calls, and thought about my kitchen table and all the ways it has participated in my personal history.

At that table, after hauling it from Tampa to Boston as a newly married couple, we built friendships with Paul and Debbie, Marc and Elise, Dalia and Ben over microbrews and fine wine…years before we all went crazy and stopped using birth control.

…read more at Ether Books.