Hit "Pause"

"I'm going to kill you guys" is dramatic and harsh, so how can I rephrase this?

I wish I could pack a suitcase and escape. Not forever, just for a little while.

Yeah, that'd be great. I mean, I'd come back, eventually. Just don't poison my name while I'm gone. Just hit "pause" on me and go on with your lives. Nothing to see here. Just a woman having a temporary vacation from all responsibility.

For just a little while, I don't want to stop dead in my tracks and scan the crowd when I hear "Mum! Muuuuum!" even when it's not my own child's voice. I think I have a name, right? I seem to vaguely recall being called something else before I became a mother to these three gorgeous kids. Yes, I acknowledge the beauty and gloriousness I've created with their father, the love of my life, my husband. My man of 18 years, one month and three and a half weeks. Yes, I do love you too, dear. But honestly, for now, just for this one moment in time, I need to hit "pause."

If I get one more soul, bemoaning their fate, some circumstance (beyond my or anyone else's control) directing their frustrations at me like anything remotely like the following, I will scream. I will.

"Mum, I've been brainstorming ideas for my 15th birthday party. I thought of hiring a theatre, but there are no good movies showing. Like NONE."

or

"Mum, I want to get on my Xbox but you said I have to read for a while. But I did do some study games on the computer. I've done some spelling, so I shouldn't have to read an actual book."

or

"Mummy, I can't find my Scooby Doo. I put him in the backpack I insisted on carrying when you took us boys to the supermarket the day after fucking Easter Sunday, along with half of Auckland. Now he's gone - help me find him pleeeeeeeeeeease."

or

"You don't support my endeavours nearly as much as I support yours..." (while the smaller three intermittently inform me of other ways I'm failing them.)

The rice cooker's broken (which is a BIG DEAL because I am Asian) and I'm nursing the goddamn pot on the stove while simultaneously hanging the load of washing done by my washing machine which apparently can only be activated by my thumbprint, btw - cut to - me having my red wine (fuck my weekends only drinking rule. Today is a holiday, so technically, it's still the weekend) in the bedroom while ugly crying and fantasizing about what I'd do if I escaped for a while, consequence free.

1) Jump on a plane to hit Paris, New York, China, Iceland, Tokyo, Morocco, Rome and Greece to take photos for my coffee table books. (But man, just between you and me - I loathe flying so could something be done about that, please.)

2) Find myself in a rustic cabin - one side deep in the woods, the other, on a cliff overlooking a wild, open beach, waves a-crashing. The cabin would be stocked with wine, beer, coffee, chocolate, pretzels and cheese and crackers. I would alternate between reading by the roaring fireplace in my jammies and taking dips in the sea in my bikini, flaunting my taut body. Hey - this is my fantasy, remember? Anything is totes possible.

3) Traveling to all of my special besties - Denmark, New York, Colorado - to just hang and be privy to their day to day existence for a week or two.

Or....

After I spew all this inner dialogue onto paper, I could eat dinner with the family, three glasses of red in, listen to their stories and banter. After the meal, sit down to watch the shitty TV that is the Bachelor NZ and be content again.

Ugly crying does wonders, I guess.

So does wine.

Easter Monday counts as the weekend, don't let anyone tell you otherwise.