Long Days, Short Seasons

‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house Not a creature was sleeping, not even the mouse. Children were running—post-bath time, bums bare, In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there.

Being a mother was one thing I had wanted my entire life.  And yet, when I stared at those two pink lines nestled so innocently in the tiny circle on the white plastic stick, my world suddenly fell apart.

Summer has arrived, dethawing my frozen, winterized body.  We have waited all year long for this.  To get the kids outside without snow, to enjoy play dates at the river and afternoons by the pool.  The luxury of long, balmy evenings when it feels like time pauses. The warm air caresses my pale skin like a hug as the clouds dance with color overhead and sun just doesn’t feel like leaving the sky.

When I became a mom, I thought I was taking on one title: Mother. What I didn’t realize was how much that one short name encased a thousand smaller titles all wrapped into it.  

I dropped an entire garbage bag stuffed full of used baby clothes off at a girlfriend’s house this afternoon.  As I drove to her house, car overburdened with three kids stuffed into the back of my Honda Accord, I was taken aback by a sadness which crept inside me the closer I got to her house.  It was just used clothes.  Clothes that had filled my closets and cluttered my house and were no longer useful as my girls had grown out of all of them.  

Dichotomy.  It’s a word I’ve always loved, I just didn’t realize it would be the one to define my everyday existence.  According to Webster, dichotomy means “a division into two especially mutually exclusive or contradictory groups or entities.”  In other words, one thing containing opposing parts.  Highs and lows. Good and bad. I believe the dictionary should also have included “see also: motherhood" because I don’t think there is any better example of living dichotomy than raising children.