We have  old-school malboxes that teenagers like to swat with baseball bats on bored summer nights.  That’s never happened to mine, but judging by the cages some of my neighbors build around their mailboxes, it’s happened to them. It used to be that I loved when the mail came. I’d listen for the gravel crunch  and tinny-plink of the old metal door being slammed , followed the rev of the mail wagon as it lurched towards the next mailbox.

Not anymore.

It’s a simple, mindless pleasure that is not more. Now I dread the mail- usually in contains something sad or stressful. Even though my divorce is final, there are things that are still unsettled. Like the big house. Despite my listing it with a realtor and having it on the market for months, it’s heading to foreclosure. There is nothing in the world I can do about it, but the letters and stress this generates is difficult. It also is a constant reminder of the someone else who should have taken care of this and us, and opted not to. I don’t want to be reminded. My plate is overflowing, and I don’t want to think about things that bear no fruits.

It’s been almost 10 months since my children have seen their father. I do not know when this will change, honestly. I had been holding the thinnest threads of hope that he might be able to still function as a parent at some point, however the more time that goes by, the dimmer and more fragile that hope becomes. My children have stopped asking, for the most part, and that makes my heart ache for them. Again, there is nothing I can do.

Tomorrow is Bean’s birthday. He’ll be seven years old. I’m dreading the mailbox both today and tomorrow- not for what it might contain, but for what it might not contain. Someday the mailbox will be a good thing again. Someday…