Two months into the school year and every week Roxie's homework is due on Friday. She gets these four-page packets on Monday, has all week to work them. This is the routine. It does not change.

Ten-word spelling list, journal page, math page, reading log, and a page to practice her 10 spelling words. Never mind that I think this is a ridiculous amount of work for a first grader.

Never mind that Roxie has visual processing stuff — like everyone in my family has processing stuff — and it makes writing a bear for her. This week she did so much by Tuesday, I gave her Wednesday afternoon off.

Plenty of time, and not much to finish with Sam Thursday night.

Accept they didn't.

Maybe this should not infuriate me. We do this every single week, this homework routine. It does not change.

Sam and I work with her 50-50. I told him Wednesday exactly what needed to be done Thursday. I get home late Thursday night, kids are in bed and it still needs to be done.

I want to be furious with him, but I remember something. Sam has an auditory processing disorder. He does not learn by ear and he does not retain information given verbally — he does not think this is true. But it is.

Most of his family is this way. I've never sat at a quieter dinner table.

And here's impact of learning/processing differences on a relationship — my relationship. Because me, I'm just the opposite. Just like Roxie. My ears are everything.

How I understand the world is conversation and I need lots of it to thrive. Reading is tedious, I'm slow and remember almost nothing.

Sam knows the world with his eyes, it's all visual. The way I get little from a book and don't remember it anyway, that's what conversation is for Sam.

I know these things. If I don't write it down for Sam he will not remember. It's completely counter intuitive to me though, so I forget. And I'm not angry with him, but...

It's 4 AM and the pillow wrapped half-way around my head is insulation from the snores across the bed. Every night together is like this and I just want it to stop. Steals my nights, that noise.

Sharing a bed again, a room, with someone takes big recalibration. We're not living in one house together yet, but half the week Sam and I stay in one place.

I try to fall asleep first, get deep into REM before the rumbling starts because I remember something now. It's not easy to share my sleeping space. Sam's snores engine-loud; you can hear it down the hall.

I used to wonder why a married couple would ever want separate bedrooms. It seemed to me like sleeping separately was a tell tale sign of T-R-O-U-B-L-E.

We're sold a packaged picture of how happily ever after should look, and it never has more than one bed.

Why is it no one ever tells you about the importance of space before a first marriage? Nobody ever says while you are busy building a life together, don't forget to develop an equally sound life of your own so you maintain a strong sense of self.

These nights together are good practice, just the way sitting in a therapist's office every week hashing out the "how's this going to work" is good practice. Going back into this marriage a second time after two years on my own is, I guess, like preparing for any second marriage. You have the benefit of practice and wisdom and experience that were impossible the first go around.

You have the perspective of age and knowing yourself and your expectations and your limits in way that only comes with years. Lessons hard won and learned slow.

And after two years apart I know this: I like sleeping in my own bed by my own self without a pillow wrapped around my head to dull the snoring. Sex is one thing, but sleep? That's another, and I don't get much of it sharing a bed.

Every time Sam and I walk into a potential rental house, the muscles in my body clench. Instant tension under my skin. And I'm aware of this.

There's that saying: The body doesn't lie. And a friend once told me the body is the brain, you can't separate them out. I spun for months on that one, trying dissect the paradox of its truth.

But I get it.

When I have a rough day with my kids, when my patience is short and every touch torture, it's my body making life so hard. When my body is tense it has a strangle hold on my brain. My mood is short and ugly. When I'm relaxed, anything goes and I can go with anything.

Maybe it's the kids that trigger these house hunting freeze-ups. The way an empty house brings on instant off-the-wall insanity and they're moving loud and fast and relentlessly.

It was like that when I looked at my little post-separation apartment with Lila, too. My mellow 22-month-old ran screaming around the hardwoods. The moment we walked out my sweet quiet baby was back.

Could be the kids I'm reacting to, too. Could be the reinvention of my marriage with Sam.

Right now my biggest fear is this big thinking brain of mine with its fat-mouth ego could have an agenda totally at odds with the rest of me. The whole of me. And if I'm not careful I'll make a wrong turn back into oblivion.

After 10 years of marriage and another two of separation, it seems like this whole stay-or-go thing should be clear. Especially since I've agreed to stay.

My brain says nobody loves you like he does, baby. And nobody will ever love your kids that way either. When I'm quiet I can hear my soul whisper in agreement.

So why is it that my shoulder is rock-knotted and I can't turn my head?

When I finally bottomed out on feeling crappy last week, I came back around to the same old thing I've always known. It's time to take care of myself and take responsibility for my outlook.

If I see it getting better, it gets better. If I see it getting worse, it gets worse.

When I take care of myself, my outlook improves, my attitude improves, my energy improves, my parenting improves, my work improves, my income improves.

So this week, I'm recommitted to the gym, been there three days in a row and I know the everyday thing won't last, but as long as I keep going, I'll keep going.

I'm eating three meals a day, drinking lots of water and trying to sleep normal hours.

Sounds like basic stuff, huh? Eating meals seems so simple it's hardly worth mentioning, until I realize I'm not eating regularly. It's that spiral where I make my kids a hot breakfast with sides of juice and fruit, eat the unwanted PB&J crusts while packing their lunches and call it good.

Darkness, depression, bad relationships: They're all the same that way — hard to see the depth of it for what it is when you're in it.

If you'll excuse me, please, I'm off to the gym for my date with the elliptical.

I thought I knew what I was doing here. "Here" meaning here in my life, not here on this blog. Though they feel like one in the same these days and I just want to strip myself all the way to honest.

The closer I come to reconstructing my relationship with Sam, the further I want to run from it. He's been doing almost everything right these days, comes to my rescue anytime I call.

Paid my Internet bill last weekend when the WiFi was disconnected, even though he can't pay his own bills this month. And I let him. And I hate myself for it.

Took care of me and my 102 degree fever on his birthday when I'd been sick and broke all week. I showed up at his house with nothing, didn't have a dollar to buy him a card or the strength to make one.

Next morning he gave me flowers for Roxie's birthday, like he does. Always gives me a gift on the girls' birthdays. I couldn't get out of bed that day, but it was only half flu — the other half equal parts depression and self-loathing.

When I finally fully awakened, all I really wanted was to go home. When I got home all I really wanted was to go back to his house. Followed that misguided instinct right back across town.

Just keep circling round, restless and running on a fuel tank of indecision. Thing is, my decision's made, been made for years, and I keep refusing it. I just keep trying to one day wake up content.

I have to get off the couch. It's killing my back and it's killing my hips and it's killing my spirit. For the entire 16 months since I left my marriage I have been sleeping in the living room of a one-bedroom apartment with Roxie and Lila sharing the only bedroom. Sixteen months.

It's actually a futon, not a couch. I claimed it in the furniture split thinking it could do double duty. Couch by day, bed by night. But more often than not it doesn't make the journey down from its full up right position. With all the other end-of-the-day things that need doing, making the bed every night takes more energy than I can muster. Unmaking it every morning requires time that I don't have. Most nights, I don't bother.

And because I don't bother, there are also too many nights that I also don't change into pajamas. Or shut out the lights. I've fallen into the horrible habit of sleeping in my clothes with the lights on. The other morning my hip was so stiff it took two days of stretching and long walks to stop limping. What it's doing to my body, it's also doing to my spirit.

It's seven steps from the futon to my desk. The longer I live in this tiny apartment, the less I care for myself, the crazier I feel. When I moved in it was supposed to be temporary. I thought sharing tight quarters with two kids would provide more than enough motivation to make something happen financially so I could move on to bigger digs. Six months. I said I'd be out of here in six months.

I'm typing this, 16 months later, in my couch bed, wondering the same thing I did at the end of my marriage. I wonder why I can't make changes until my life becomes too uncomfortable to bear.

For the past two days I've eaten nothing but popsicles, banana and root beer popsicles, to be exact. Swallowing anything else is like being stabbed in the tonsils with hot knitting needles. I can't actually see the inside of my skull, but I'm pretty sure my brain is coated with the same thick layer of yellow gunk covering my swollen tongue, and that it's the cause of this relentless headache.

When I was sick as a kid, my dad always brought home root beer and banana popsicles. Sam knows I still crave them when I don't feel well. He knows these things about me — doesn't ask what I want, just stocks the freezer.

In the space of just a few days, I've watched the entire first season of Weeds, This Movie is Not Yet Rated, Shrek The Third (Roxie and Lila's pick) and half of the Soprano's final season. My bedside table — er, um, Sam's bedside table — was growing a pile of popsicle sticks, the kind with punny jokes like, "What is the most musical part of a Turkey? The Drum Stick!"

Sam comes in and out, clearing away wrappers and bringing fresh juice. He cleans and plays with the girls while I listen to them through the closed bedroom door.

Later on, in the middle of the night, I'm boiling. My bare feet hit the hardwoods, and I'm down the hall to the kitchen. The house is dark, everyone else is sleeping. I open the freezer and let the cold air out all across my face.

I stare at the boxes of popsicles — banana, root beer, and lime. No one is eating the lime. I think that maybe I could be ready to try it again.

It was Friday afternoon with just a couple pressing matters left to finish when the first wave came across me. Tucked myself up under the blankets, computer on my lap and gave a little thanks to the gods that I can work snuggled on the couch when I feel like crap.

And I felt like crap. My day went: work a little, nap a little, work a little more, nap a little more, until everything was done and I couldn't lift my head from the pillow. I was shivering sweat under the goose down, little gas heater set to tropical beside me.

I thought about calling Sam, asking him to come get me on his way home from work after he picked up the girls. But I couldn't find the phone and I couldn't get up to look for it and I couldn't decide whether I wanted to be taken care of or to be left alone in my quiet kid-free apartment.

My throat was starting to kill and I was surer with every swallow what I had — strep throat courtesy of Lila, assisted by Roxie. And with the dark overtaking my apartment I knew I didn't want to suffer alone all night, with no one to bring my ginger ale and acetaminophen.

Sam said: "If you leave your house right now I can have a hot bath ready by the time you get here."

I said: "I can't move, can you have someone stay with the girls after they're asleep and come get me?"

He drove 10 miles across town, found me in Roxie's bed, curled up all fetal, talking incoherent fever dreams about how Charlie Brown could not settle my claim by the river. That land belonged to me and he is two-dimensional. Flat. Charlie Brown is flat, how could he be a homesteader? And with that, I went home with my husband.