bracelets

Does anyone really find this fulfilling? I mean really fulfilling? Don't get me wrong. I love my job. I love my kids. I love staying at home with them and having these years of closeness. And I don't want to sound ungrateful. Why is it that I feel so guilty when I express a certain sense of emptiness? Like parts of me are missing? But it's not fulfilling. Not really. Not even moderately. I wonder if there are people out there whose needs are truly met by this. Who don't wish, sometimes, that they were out in the world, talking and laughing with other adults rather than at home making play-dough and banana cake. I wonder if any of this has to do with my being pregnant and feeling like a prisoner to my body just like I'm a prisoner to my world sometimes.

Leo loves to dress me up in bracelets. If he can't find any bracelets he puts hair elastics all over my wrists until my hands go numb. He likes to see me bejeweled. "Do you look so pretty?" he asks. "Will you be my best friend?"