Six years ago, if you had told me that someday I would be kissing two of my three children goodbye, watching them climb up the steps of that big yellow bus, and entrusting a stranger to my children’s care as they make their way to school, it would have seemed like a forever away future. If you had told me that the following hours would create a gap of time in which I was not only mama who could maybe get those toys picked up before bedtime, I could not have imagined it. Yet, that day… that day is today. That day is here. The time of infancy, of toddlerhood, of transitioning from little babies into little children, all of that has floated away and I’m not sure to where it disappeared.
Today I sent off my two oldest to 2nd grade and Kinder. They boarded the bus together, they sat together, and they will return home together after 6 1/2 hours of the school day have passed. There’s a quiet that settled over my home this morning after they left. It is not a total silence, there is still that little toddler, my youngest, still in my care 24/7, but it was a quiet nonetheless. If you had told me that someday this quietness would come, I would have laughed. It seemed impossible. And if you had caught me at the right time, I would have told you that I didn’t want it, that I’d hate that quiet. Yet, here it is, and while it is bittersweet, it is more sweet today than bitter. My living room is clean. I even put on make-up today. I took my toddler out to play at the Children’s Museum. I ran to the store with little hassle. I look around and I see… my home will look different now. It will be tidier, cleaner, more frequently. It will be emptier too, until those two sweet kiddos return home in the afternoon.
I have joked, and others have laughed with me, asking “What in the world will I do with all that time?”. Today, today I saw the possibilities and I know, this time will not be empty. I can sew again, I can tidy my home with greater ease, I can read, I can write, and I can finish projects that have lay untouched for over a year. Is it possible that the laundry will not fall behind anymore? The dishes, maybe they won’t pile to overflowing in my sink? Perhaps the floors will be kept clean, and fingerprints might just be barely noticeable on the sliding door? Is this really my life now? Time to do the things I always want to accomplish, yet never quite had the time for? And if this time has been given to me, how do I get the most from it?
I am not prepared for this change, and I feel excited and anxious and a little bit sad all at once.
Thicket and Thorn 