This weekend, Alastair played at the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival, and the girls and I spent the day there with him on Saturday. It was fun, in the way that going to a large, crowded event with two two-year-olds is fun. That is, moments of fun (Clio singing a song of her own invention, the word "happy" over and over again to the tune of "Twinkle Twinkle"; Elsa going all Woodstock, playing in the mud with obvious glee) interspersed with moments of aggravation and frustration (Clio refusing to walk from the parking lot into the festival because there's too much mud; Elsa throwing a small fit because we cut her pizza instead of letting her attempt to eat "a big one"). Pretty much your typical toddler event.
Alastair and I have gone to Falcon Ridge together twice before; once in 2000 or 2001, I think, and again in 2005. We camped out up in the field with hundreds of other people, stayed up late around song-swapping campfires, drank voluminous amounts of cheap wine and beer. Obviously, this was before Elsa and Clio were twinkles in either of our eyes. It was just us, and it was all about us, and it was easy. About the most taxing aspect of it was having to trudge to the porta-potties in the middle of the night. Alastair was more into the music part of the event than me, of course, it being his metier and all. (Shocking Confession: I'm actually not that into most contemporary folk singer/songwriter stuff, even though it's what my husband does. Scandal!) But I loved being there for the people-watching, browsing the vendor booths, and hanging out around the campfire with folks at night. It's in beautiful country, too, just west of the Massachusetts border in New York, at the edge of the Berkshires. And, yeah, yeah, all right, some of the music is OK. Especially after some of the aforementioned cheap wine and beer.
I don't normally pine too much for LBK. (Life Before Kids.) I had a long and happy young adulthood and when we had our girls, I felt entirely ready to move into a new phase of life. But for some reason, being at Falcon Ridge made me feel strangely, intensely nostalgic for the days of just the two of us. And a little bummed out. Even resentful. It's not as if I went there with any sort of expectation that it would somehow, magically not feel like a typical outing-with-toddlers. I knew what I was getting into. But being there just twanged a certain string (location-appropriate metaphor intentional) and I found myself longing to be 26 again, on a summer weekend away with my cute, guitar-playing boyfriend, with nobody else to look after but myself, and maybe him, a little. Time to observe. Freedom to move. Space to see and listen and absorb. No stress. No aggravation. No irrational fights over whether or not pizza should be cut (Cut it, Mommy! NOOO!! Don't Cut it!!) And no tense moments between me and A. over equally stupid things. We actually do pretty well most of the time; for the most part, we avoid taking our frustration with the girls out on each other. But it happens. Inevitably. And it makes me miss "us" even more.
I know that part of why I felt the way I did that my mood is not at optimal level -- I've been battling the beast again: med change; dosage change; other stuff I'd rather not get into; blah blah blah -- so the frustrating aspects of dealing with the girls are harder for me to deal with patiently and gracefully. (Or, as they say, in symptomatic terms, "Increased irritability.") Everything feels a bit more intense and emotional and difficult to handle, and I'm aware of how that was factoring into what I was feeling.
But depression or not -- do ever just wish you could ditch the kids, throw a couple of suitcases in the car, and drive a few hundred miles away and a few years back in time to when it was just you and your partner and you ate long lazy diner breakfasts and slept late and wandered aimlessly and had no one to take care of but yourselves? Do you ever wish with all your heart you could go back to being just a couple, for just a little while? Because damn, I'm feeling it right now.
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