It’s been so long since I’ve had a bad day that I’ve forgotten when the last one was.  I hit a couple of rough patches in June and July, but August was a welcome time of shift in focus and mood.

I woke up one day and decided I was fed up with the affair dominating my moods and I was fed up with H. feeling bad.  It took a  few months from the time I told my sister that I should take my boot off of his neck, no matter how softly it was on there, but took an actual number of weeks to me to tell myself, “Enough.  I don’t want him stuck up to his hips in shame.”

Why not?  It makes me feel bad.  Sorry, it’s all I’ve got. Anyway, this happened a year and a half ago, I thought.  He was sorry from the beginning.  Get over it.

Vacation came and did what vacations do: got me in a new locations and a new frame of mind.  I felt relieved. Liberated, freed from the residual stench of the other woman. I didn’t need to think about it, I didn;’t need to talk about it and least of all, did I need to hear about it.

Three months later, and on the way out the door, my husband said a word which triggered a crush of emotions as surely had I opened one of the kids’ closet doors.  Asking questions about something on the morning news, which I couldn’t answer since it was, as I mentioned, NEWS, which correctly implies that I had no previous access to this information, myself, H. defended himself with, “You know how I am…”Scoop.””

“Scoop” is actually a name used in reference to my mother-in-law because of her keen interest in all things novel and new.   Her son, very much like her, I called “Scoop, Jr.”  For whatever reason, today, hanging ten on the edge of a hormonal hangover, his remark raised my hackles and I felt myself stiffen.   Read this as fast as you can to see where my mind went: scoop > nosy >  just HAD to know what HS GF was up to > excited her to hear from him  > she threw herself at him repeatedly until she stuck > the rest is history.  Where once “Scoop” was a cute name for my cute mother-in-law…it’s just not so cute anymore, because the curiosity behind the scoop brought home an awful lot of ugliness.

So.  Yes, it’s true, I have much to do in preparation for Thanksgiving, including, cleaning everything out of my dining room before H’s family all arrive for dinner.  Do I feel like doing it?  No.  What do I feel like doing?  I feel like being persnickity and pouty.

I’m thinking a nap may help.  I could wake up and forget the entire thing, just like last week, when I forgot the word for sidewalk.

It could happen.