Of Course You Can

Herself speaks.

The breeze comes in, and the clouds gather, and it looks like rain. And at first I think I've avoided the migraine that comes with a change in weather. But no -- it's only delayed by a few hours. Instead, I wake up at three thirty-something, hearing the wind in the tree outside, smelling the scent of the water in the desert, and feeling the all-too-familiar pounding inside my skull. 

I'll try moving to the couch downstairs; sometimes a change of scenery and the cool of the leather (along with some ibuprofen) will help me to fall back asleep, as long as my brain isn't mired in a migraine-rumination-rut-of-despair.  It's touch and go. You never know where it will get stuck.

As I drag my headache around this morning, trying to accomplish weekend chores, it whines about the clutter of other peoples' belongings everywhere in the house, the ongoing, perpetual tasks, the things that I do, and do again and again, and it tells me, I can't do this any more. 

And my only response is: Of course you can.

This is all temporary: the Tasks, the Chores, the Clutter. It will all have an Endpoint.  I can't see it now, but there will come a day when things are more settled, when Offspring really are truly launched, when I come home and the kitchen is as clean at the end of the day as it was when I left in the morning, when no one's laundry or cardboard boxes are occupying space, when no one's papers or miscellany is stacked in little piles on the sideboard or in the front hall or the corner of the kitchen counter, when I can park my car in the garage, when I can take the garbage out without navigating half a dozen vehicles.  

And I might, perhaps, even look back a little bit with fondness or wistfulness, at the moments when everyone was here. 

It's not that I mind all the things. It's not that I begrudge others, the tasks that are expected of me. The chronic pain is the straw that is breaking the camel's back. The camel needs a long drink of water, and a week in the pasture, unbothered. 

I am so Tired. 

One foot in front of the other. On I go. Because of course I can.