The Only Advantage to Being Alone...

My daughter started preschool this week.  I have been raving to my friends how great this alone time will be.  Afterall, I spent all of my 20s pregnant, nursing or caring for an offspring in one way or another.  She's the last one out of the nest.  I should feel esctatic!  Dropping her off at preschool, I felt happy for her.  She's not a sit at home kind of girl.  She knew the moment was bittersweet as well.  One minute she's pushing me to my car, the next she says she loves me and kisses me goodbye.  Aloneness.  Freedom.  I felt for a minute like a crazy reckless teenager.  I could go anywhere, do anything.  But that quickly passed, and I felt sad to be alone.  I remembered the one thing I couldn't do with my kids that I love:  belting out sad Broadway songs.  My kids hate that.  Nothing makes me feel more alive than singing those songs.  The first time I discovered this was going to get in the way of my children enjoying their homelife with me, was when my son was two.  I thought I was alone doing dishes one night.  I was listening to the soundtrack of Ragtime  when Audra McDonald sings "Your Daddy's Son." One of my favorite songs of all time, but very depressing.  I open my eyes at the end of the chours to see my son looking terrified of me, like he didn't know who I was.   I calmed him down but realized I would be limited in my song choice from now on.  So I have discovered the one advantage to being by myself for those hours:  Broadway's most heart-wrenching soundtrack filling my house.  Now I just have to worry about complaints from the neighbors.