Sprung

Tuesday I watched Five climb the day camp bus stairs for the first time, half a step behind Eight, and pile into the same seat. They maneuvered bodies and backpacks like two tortoises sharing the backseat of a cab. As the yellow tube pulled away, so too my neon jumpsuit and shackles.

I’m out on good behavior for the next five weeks.

I began doing hard time on the stay-at-home circuit in 2004, and haven’t had a quiet day in an office entirely devoted to work outside of motherhood since. Suddenly, from 9 to 4:30 weekdays, my house sounds like the pause button—not just mute, but also frozen. Nobody but The Fur Bastard reads over my shoulder as I type, no smell my feet screams nor Lego bin-dumps, no did you flush and wash call and response, no worthy quotes to stealthily status-update. Freed-up from tracking time outs, my trusty microwave timer rouses only to warm-up my coffee. The solitude is bliss; it’s a milestone. I try not to dwell on the empty rooms foreshadowing my Isotoner slipper years.

Having flexibility in my schedule intimidates my newly-sprung sensibilities, as I’ve had scarce authority to set the daily itinerary according to my own needs. My butt wonders what happened to its pogo stick–it hasn’t seen this much inaction since my days at Chicago switchboards. My internal timer needs to adjust to DayCamp Savings Time—it’s programmed for two hour maximum child-free increments in which appointments, exercise, work and hygiene management must compete for attention. I can have fresh air whenever it suits me, not just in the park with the other inmates during yard time. This morning my bladder nearly jumped out and kissed the ground when I got up to use the ladies’ at the very first sign of pressure. Yesterday I almost auto-ejected from my stylist’s chair—my internal warden notifying me that visiting hours with myself were coming to a close. Then I remembered I had 5.5 more hours before pickup, plus as many phone calls as I wanted–free of ‘I said I’m on the phone’ mime.

A whole world exists out here. Today I gave my kindly financial advisor 30 years of my family history in answer to his question about our retirement planning. Last night I accepted another volunteer position I had no business accepting, but she kept calling me young and saying such nice things about me (my new-found freedom makes me vulnerable to such predators). I had lunch with my mom and she took me shopping for a dress; she did not beg for soda with caffeine at lunch, nor play bongos on my butt in the boutique. I did not ask her seventy five times if she needed to go potty, but the threat of recidivism looms.

Look for me back in my jumpsuit for the last two weeks of August, and pray for a merciful parole board. Consider writing a letter or two. Pokemon cards couldn’t hurt.