Un-Balancing Act

There isn't that much to juggle. My career is enjoyable, I work from home. I hardly ever put a suit on let alone makeup. I have only one child - really a young man who is old enough to do most things for himself. My partner helps where he can, and I don't even clean my own house. But I am sitting here like a nuclear reactor about to go into the red zone because I can not motivate my child to focus on his school work. We have been through so much together. My delivery can be harsh and can often lack the tenderness I am sure he requires. I am awaiting an evaluation appointment that I wish we didn't need. Not because I am ashamed or disappointed in any way but because I selfishly wish this could be a simple fix that doesn't require him to expose himself, doubt himself, or finally - for me to doubt myself. I don't want my child to think there is something wrong with him however I found myself asking him on more than one recent occasion, "What is wrong with you??...

I was riding my bike around this little sleepy neighborhood, with more visible construction workers than actual residents, when I smelled it. Out of the side sliding door of a white van I detected the familiar smell mixed with the upholstery, cigarette smoke, and heat in the air - it was most certainly a Vanilaroma tree. We are hundreds of miles and a few decades away from the nostalgia to which this scent transported me. Gas was 99 cents per gallon at Jersey Oil. My friends and I mostly drove hand me down cars from our parents, or a practical, barely functioning version of what we could all afford at the time. It was cool to know how to drive a stick shift. It was ok to scoop ice cream, bus tables, or fold sweaters at the Gap in order to make enough money to buy that gas and some Taco Bell after school. When Spring Fever started creeping in you could smell the story of these teenage owned cars in the fabric of the seats - intermingled with the musky flavor of your tree of choice. Mi...