Chapter 10 - "Relaxation" (Theme 100)
If Karen were lucky, if Santa Barbara's criminals were considerate enough to allow her to leave at a decent hour, if her husband also managed to leave work on time, if traffic wasn't bad and if Iris wasn't cranky, if butterflies flew in the right directi
If Karen were lucky, if Santa Barbara's criminals were considerate enough to allow her to leave at a decent hour, if her husband also managed to leave work on time, if traffic wasn't bad and if Iris wasn't cranky, if butterflies flew in the right direction and the wind blew a certain way and the moon and stars aligned just so... Karen got to relax for upwards of five whole minutes.
Because of the assortment of complicated factors involved, this rarely ever happened. Sometimes she'd be close - she'd just be settling into the couch with her husband and a mug of hot peppermint tea, the fire place crackling in the blissful silence... and Iris would scream herself awake, or the bathroom would flood, or the phone would ring, no doubt announcing another dead body and of course waking Iris in the process.
Karen could probably count on one hand how many times she'd gotten to completely and utterly relax since becoming the Interim Chief of Police, and both of those times were before Iris was born and before the "Interim" was dropped from her job title.
She wouldn't trade motherhood for the world, but lately she'd been feeling the stress more and more. Lately, she'd decided she had to achieve relaxation in small, easy-to-handle parcels of time: the one hundred and thirty eight precious seconds waiting for her Starbucks on Monday mornings, the forced five minute wait when she happens to be stuck behind the 8:32 AM freight train, the full hour she sometimes allows herself to eat lunch and indulge in that damn Spanish soap opera Mr. Spencer had gotten her hooked on.
These random pockets of stress relief interspersed throughout her days sometimes alleviated her anxiety more than an extra-long bubble bath ever could.
There were times, though, when moments of peace and soothing bubbles couldn't begin to calm her nerves or undo the kink in her neck. During these times, when Karen felt herself tensing beyond normal, when she felt like she just didn't know how she was going to handle it all anymore, she merely had to think of her daughter. Little Iris, for whom she waited so long and who's already growing up much too quickly… little Iris was the reason Karen continued to function beyond exhaustion. It was now for her that she worked extra long hours to put criminals behind bars; it was now for her shining face and bubbly laugh that she so freely gave up her precious few moments of relaxation.