Each afternoon as I get closer and closer to home, I begin to dread the rest of the evening. I enjoy the girls, and being home and cooking supper. But there's no room for error--no time for free-will. I have work to do as soon as I step through the door, and the monotony of it is a drag. Veering from the routine causes major problems later, so I often don't get to take my shoes off until after dinner.
So each day as I near home, I start to feel heavy. Tonight, my parents came over for dinner (which is good), but Mom had already called my cell phone twice--once to say she was at my house and again to tell me she was worried that I was late. (*sigh*) I used to see my car as a welcome escape from the outside world--a sanctuary of freedom. But two children and one cell phone later, I am no longer free. I am "on call". I long for my highschool days when I drove for hours after school along the backroads of Iowa, listening to the radio, and completely unavailable. When I arrived home, I knew that the girls would be excited, Mom would be excited, and I would be exhausted.
But then four blocks from home a song came on the radio and everything changed. It could be any song that coaxes a grin from your face that spreads through your entire body. It was a surprise song--one I'm not used to hearing on the radio, which made it even more pleasurable. It was the Muse singing the Knights of Cydonia. Mom was calling again on my cell, but I didn't care. I could be home in seconds, but instead, I passed by our street and kept going. The girls were quiet. The sun was setting, and I was singing--loud. Suddenly, I'm back in Iowa.
It's a perfect song to indulge in. It has a long, instrumental intro and great lyrics. "No one's going to take me alive...The time has come to make things right. You and I must fight for our rights...You and I must fight to survive." Yahoo! (This confirms my theory that we are fighters as heart.) After singing this a couple of times, the song completely rocks out--a lot like Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. (If you've ever seen Wayne's World, you know what I'm talking about.) So I'm driving, and watching the road, and looking out for animals and small children. And I'm totally rocking out. The girls don't speak.
I took the long, long way home and timed it out so that the song ended only a few blocks from my house. At the end of the song, I released a hill-billy holler and thrust a fist into the air. "Yay!" I say and clap. The girls say "Yay", too. "That is such a great song! I'm in such a good mood," I tell them. Elizabeth says, "Hearing that song makes me happy." Then Samantha says, "That song makes me happy, too."
Me, three.
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