Late non-entry: Trifecta

I am, as is sometimes the case, late with an entry to Trifecta's word-of-the-week challenge. This week's word is the verb, to skirt. I wanted to do it anyway (and plan to regardless of whether or not I hit deadlines in coming weeks), so here is my non-entry. Needless to say, on-timed-ness will not on my New Year's Resolutions List in the coming year, but adaptivity to the circumstances I find myself in will.

She came into town from a suburb an hour out and rang the doorbell. Her defiance was carried loud and clear via electrical current. Ding dong.

The time I get off from my three smallish children is precious and rare. It is now the end of December and I don't think I've had a full day free from them -- I feel like I haven't been alone in my house to work or relax since September. Me, the woman who routinely insisted her man go out with the boys just to ensure time alone in that halcyon pre-kid existence.

Today my tasks were to tidy up a house and make dinner for a bigger family gathering. Not exactly prime alone time but a space with my own thoughts taking priority is so rare. The old adage, beggars can't be choosers, fits me like a pair of expensive stockings.

So, yes. The door rang, I answered it and efficiently told her that she was to give me an hour, maybe two, by sitting in a beautiful new armchair in the empty suite she would be occupying later that night anyway. Of course, she being herself, she retorted crisply that she would not be banished, that the upstairs would suit her just fine thankyouverymuch.

The thing is? I have stopped being honest, as an act of what, self-preservation? Not exactly. Really, even though I kid myself about having stopped the bullying, a life-threatening terminal illness at "end stage" is forcing me to hold my tongue in ways I've never done before. I skirt around issues as though I am a world-class figure skater avoiding the treacherous roses and teddy bears thrown enthusiastically ice-ward.

And so she sits, in the middle of my mess, and makes the usual verbal pokes that pierce my afternoon’s plan like the point of a knife into a balloon, only over and over and over again.