almost said no

You know, what bugs me is that I almost didn’t do it. I was sooo tired, sore, and I just really wanted to sit down. It had been a long day, my weekend was mostly wasted already having spent a chunk of it at work and on the phone with people there. The time I did have I spent working on my yard and other heavily neglected projects around the house. That stupid roto-tiller I rented just about killed me until I remembered how to let the dang machine do the work. Even after that it’s not exactly like running a lawn mower, actually not even close. Muscles I’ve apparently never used are still hurting as I type.

I just didn’t feel like it. They were having fun all by themselves, why did they need me to jump in? Friday night was spent on the phone and answering pages in the middle of the night. Saturday morning came unusually fast despite Friday night being the shortest of the week… and just knowing I’d have to go in to work again on Sunday night just killed my desire to do anything else that day. I didn’t have the heart to get after them for destroying the living room even further and asking them to do the “weekend clean up” just didn’t seem appropriate right before spring break. Well their spring break anyway. I don’t even know if I’ll be able to get Friday off like I want to...

All three of them were practically begging. My son was torn between being able to jump off the roof and just getting me to jump with them. What was I thinking anyway? How many 14 year old girls still want their dad to jump on the trampoline with them? Duh? All I could think about was how much work I had to do; at home, at work, with my ex, and how I wished my patio was done already so I could relax even more comfortably than I already was in my old decrepit lawn furniture.

I got up to tell them no, I was too tired and that jumping off the roof was too dangerous and I was stupid for even letting them do it once. And instead I found myself pulling off my shoes and wondering if I’d hurt my back by jumping with them. Then after a good 20 minutes of total chaos on nylon suspended by springs over a metal frame we all collapsed. I had farted and we all fell to avoid the stench and could hardly stand up because we were laughing so hard. We had jumped long enough where even my kids were a little tired. We just lay there and talked and laughed a little more. The weather was perfect, they were happy, I was happy and I wondered… how I almost said no.

Fej