stormy morning

it's rainy and windy out--such a crappy contrast to yesterday's warm, sunny, crisply fall beauty. the baby is perched on my lap because he is unusually fussy due to the impending eruption of his first two teeth through his tender gums. all morning i dreamed of college and how i didn't go because my dad couldn't help me pay for it and i was overwhelmed trying to figure out how to get funding and decide where to go and what to do. my dad was burned out on being a single parent, i think, and didn't help or guide me. instead of going to college i dropped out of high school after moving into my own apartment with my boyfriend. i got a job at burger king. eventually i had vesta, followed two and a half years later by hazel. this was the great mistake of my dad's parenting life, in my opinion (not that he didn't pay for college--he couldn't, but that he moved me into an apartment and let me drop out). not that i would change it now, how could i with vesta and hazel to show for it. but in another universe, in another dimension....maybe my dad musters up some more energy and pushes me to finish high school and go to college. maybe he sits at the table with me looking over college pamphlets and we bang it out. i forgive him for not doing that, even though i can't imagine--really--why he didn't. i say: he was tired, he was a single parent, he was busy, etc etc etc. but even so, i can't REALLY understand it. i was his child and he let me go before he should have because that was easiest for him...and parenting is most definately not about what is easiest for the parent. he was getting married and she and i didn't get along...it makes me sad to think about it.
now he's married to a different woman and her daughter is starting college this fall, that's why i'm thinking about it. i'm jealous in a totally not personal or mean way. she deserves to go to college and i'm stoked for her that her mom has saved and prepared for it. i am just sad for my own tired and second-rate youth.
well. i've drunk my tea and been morose for a few minutes and now it's time to go hang with the girls. they have the day off school today for vetran's day and we're going to rent Ratatouille and make soap and enjoy each other's company.