Idyllic Landscape (2)

A few more clicks. I rediscover Steve with unkept, shoulder-length gray hair, smiling faintly underneath an oversized hat. In this recent video clip, he is performing a song I once loved. But the spark has gone. Utterly gone. “Sad. Desperately sad,” one visitor wrote on the site’s message board. Similar messages follow. Many were written by women about my age. Freckles. Ponytails. Pink lip gloss. They, too, had been adolescents. Don’t you wish you could go back in time? Someone poses the question. 

 Yes, I ache to go back. 

Then I realize it’s almost time to pick up the kids at school. Logging out, I grab the car keys and run out. What should I cook for dinner? My son requested curry rice, but I haven’t had the chance to soak rice yet. We have violin lessons tomorrow. I hope the kids will cooperate and put in extra practice time tonight. Oh, is the freeway traffic horrible again? Forgetting about the one-time heart-throb, I return to motherhood.

I sigh. I ponder. But ultimately, I embrace my life —- here and now. This is where I belong.