Back to School Musings

I’m so proud of my kids.

I don’t post pictures of their faces anymore, and I ask that others don’t either, as I believe that they have a right to privacy growing up and I believe it’s what’s best for each of them.

That said, that doesn’t mean that I don’t want to share about how wonderful they are, how proud I am of them, and how parenting causes you to change and grow so much as a human.

My oldest is a middle schooler. It blows my mind everytime I think about it. My youngest won’t be so young that much longer. The years pass like barns on a vast highway - fast, blurred, and beautifully.

I was a young mother. We were young parents without a clue, trudging our way through the murkiness of what it means to love, empathize, sacrifice, and surrender. At 35, I look at them now and I can’t help but feel proud of how far they’ve come, how much we have all blossomed along the way. I feel compassion for each of us; the young woman who had no clue about motherhood. Her even younger husband who barely knew himself. The two babies who were supremely loved but at times bore the brunt of our own shortcomings. I look upon them all with tears of gratitude and compassion.

Today, those kids went back to school. My husband back to work. And me, on two hours of sleep, went back to making our house a home while orchestrating the mechanics behind our complex, demanding lives. I visited a library too, and that was just for me.

If the beginning of school has taught me anything, it’s that time moves too slowly. I’m exhausted at the end of each summer from doing everything. Joints aching, head pounding, and running on nothing but pure will-power and protein bars, I somehow make ends meet until the last day of summer. If the beginning of school has taught me another thing, it’s that time moves too quickly. Where sacred moments of laughter and communion slip away as swiftly as leaves from the trees in the coming autumn. One day I look at the face of my cherub baby, and the next I see a growing young man, no matter how much I do or don’t like it. Life continues with or without my opinions. The sides of my hair turn white as my husbands beard grays, and yet it’s stillness - the fractals of time where we were doing nothing at all but enjoying each other’s company - that matters most.

Screaming from the other room is interrupting this writing, sibling fights bringing me back to that “time can’t move quickly enough” reality once again. But one day, one day sooner rather than later, I’ll be begging the keeper of time to turn back the clock hands.

I love you, my beautiful family. I love you, beautiful self.