Questa è Enida

I mean… seriously!

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On Monday mornings I get up around 0530, 0615 the latest. In fact, on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday mornings I get up at 0500. Sometimes earlier, sometimes later. But no later than 0630. The drive to school depends on the timing and the traffic. What’s new? If we leave home before 0650, the drive is usually 20 minutes tops. But anything after 0700, it could go up to 40 minutes to an hour. I make my way home after the drop off between 0745 and 0815.

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And then it’s setting up time for me. The self, the body and the tummy. At times, work starts from the school gate and off to wherever things need to be delivered or picked up. Lucky if I get to come home to sip on Nescafe Gold in the kitchen. At other times, mornings are for the house maintenance work – waiting for the plumber, or the contractor. But there are always things to do. Whether it is work, or ‘home’ work.

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By noon, lunch is prepared, or at least set out from the freezer for early supper-cooking session. And that leaves me about an hour or so to look at t-shirts or hoodies to order from the suppliers, while taking orders online. And when there are modules to be prepared, I have to forget about breakfast, plumbing, cleaning up, cooking and sometimes ordering. But of course some days are diamonds and some days are stones. On diamond days, I get to do breakfast with my sisters or my trusted friends.

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In the afternoon, the kids are usually picked up on my way to, yet again, the suppliers, or tailors, or embroiderers, or what have you. But there are days that I have to rush them home for their music lessons or dance classes in the evening. And that works perfectly fine when I have to drive about 70km to another supplier, and 70km back, stopping at the bus terminal or the courier service stations for other deliveries. On the days without this long-distant delivery, the after-school time is always about school work, at home. I watch and I guide both kids doing their homework, single-handedly.

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By the time the day’s work is done, which is never truly done during the daylight… the sun is down. On diamond days, I get to be at home to cook meals for my kids and have the luxury of dining with them and asking them their highs and lows of the day. But when it is a stone day, lucky if I get home in time to say good night. I kiss them anyway… while they are sleeping. And then it is time for online orders and managing projects again. And I do some reading, to keep me alive. I write too, to keep me sane.

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The cycle starts again every morning after a good three to four hours of sleep.

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The only time I sleep in the morning or afternoon of Monday or Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday or Friday or any time before midnight is when I am dying.

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Thanks.

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