Leaving Makes Me Love You More

The idea to write an ode to my daily routine awoke me in the night.  Now that we are planning to temporarily depart from this fair city come fall, I have become ridiculously sentimental about it.  For instance, when Ruthie, my faithful lab companion, woke me up about 5:30am to take her out to the park, I bounded out of bed with excited anticipation.


A little background might explain my enthusiasm:  this year, my New Year's Resolution was to take the dog out each morning and meet up with some other Riverdalians.  Jeff had already established the relationship, but had fallen out of the habit once the temperatures plummeted to the minus twenties.  But others carried on, despite the group dwindling to two people from five or six.  Jeff always valued the time he spent with these folks, so I thought I would give it a go.    


So, now I meet with the dwindled-two in my neighbourhood every morning at 6:30 to let our dogs rip around, eat sticks, and sometimes, each other's poop. I have started to refer to them as my "morning family."  We've been through so much together in this short time!  We talk about everything in between cooing at each  other's dogs and concentrating on not getting knocked over by running dog-torpedoes.   And my middle-of-the-night epiphany has alerted me to how much I will miss them once we've gone.  I hope they won't forget me; or worse, replace me!


One last ode to my routine is the elation I am going to feel once I don't have to make bagged lunches for my kids anymore.  I am actually considering starting an official count-down clock to the day I can stop.  I know it sounds terribly whiney, but constructing a creative yet healthy meal-in-a-bag every day for my kids is wearing thin.  I am at the point now where I just huck stuff in their bags like canned corn, a fork and a can opener.  So, it's probably a good idea to have a sabbatical from that madness.