Dear Roger: Plague Monkeys

Ugh...I want to be celebrating, in fact, I want to be hooting and hollering and raising a fuss all over the place, but I simply do not have the energy and if I tried it, my head would explode from all the coughing. Yeah, the monkeys have struck again and I have kiddie-borne crud in the form of a cold. The kids always seem to snap out of it within 24 hours or so, hardly even knocked off their desire to eat all the food in the house, but me? Feh! Like most adults, I am drug to deaths door and left laying there like a half eaten mouse the cat played with and didn't want. I feel like the half of the mouse that got sicked up on the rug beside the bed and then stepped on.
But I am still happy, though a bit freaked out, because I did something soo completely irresponsible and crazy that I still cant believe I did it. The little band we love so much is starting up a bit of a tour, and its coming in fits and bursts, with seeming no real rhyme or reason. A good friend of mine sent me a message telling me that she saw they were going to be in Las Vegas shortly after my birthday and I said out loud to myself that I really wished I could go and see them because God only  knew if they were going to make it to Portland.
My eldest son was sitting next to me on the couch and he said,"Go, you should go because you cant go to your High school reunion, you haven't gotten anything for your birthday in forever, and you haven't had a vacation in well, ever, soo...GO" I gave him all the mom, responsible reasons why I shouldn't, and he responded by grabbing my computer and threatening to book the trip himself. He managed to convince me it was a good idea, and after crunching numbers, robbing of Peter and telling Paul to go starve, I booked it and I am going! My first trip for purely fun in forever. Seriously. I am freaking out just a little. I never do anything like this anymore. My wanderlust had been leashed by responsibility and doing the right thing by my kids because I couldn't count on my ex to ever do his part, and it has aged me soo damn much. I look in the mirror some days and I don't recognize myself, Im gaunt and hollow-eyed, and my son is right, I do look tired all the way down to my soul, so maybe this will be just what I need to help me find that spark I used to have.
I have done a few things lately to try and rekindle my spark, including the haircut and color, and when I said I was going to cut the ties that bound me to the one thing that had been a constant source of passion and pain for so long, I did actually do it. Its been hard as hell to not undo it. Yahoo even sent me an email inviting me to undo it, told me I could have it all back, like it never happened, and I sat here staring at that link for a long time.
I miss him so much.
Just learning to check my email without anticipating seeing one from him is hard. I always hold out hope that I would have been the choice, even though I knew in my heart I never would be. I was not the thing that glittered the brightest. I get up each morning telling myself I made the right choice and I drink my coffee, put my boots on, go out the door to work, putting my earbuds in my ears to listen to music that almost sounds like something I should have written, and it reminds me that I made the right choice.
There is another concert in a month or so and Im kinda thinking about trying for it, if I can get over being infected by the kids and their germs, and the feeling that I dont deserve a moment of happiness.