Ache and Hum {a busy mom's lament}

Life pounds out staccato. 

The beat growing faster. 

Until the days whir by to the hum. 

Where did autumn go? 

Also, my firstborn prepares to turn 18 next week. 

Wasn't I just rocking him to sleep as he snuggled my hair and sucked his thumb? Here we are living in the U.S.A. with four kids, a mortgage payment, and a dog, just before our 20th anniversary next month. We are on the front porch of mid-life. And somehow, I thought things would slow down after the blur of toddlerhood. But the pace has gotten even more harried. I ache for those long, slow days. And I love the season we are currently in. The kids are all learning how to make their way in the world, and we get a front-row seat to their triumphs and tragedies, as we standby to cheer or comfort. 

It's a long letting go. And I refuse to buy into the myth that we only get 18 summers. I want more than that. I want my kids to call and stop by, I want to hear all about the glorious and the hard of young adulthood, work, marriage, and parenting. So I'll keep pushing pause on my grad school homework to listen to stories from school, I will stay up late {apparently the only time teens wish to spill the tea}, and I'll climb up into the top bunk and cuddle my tween who can only share honestly when the lights are out, and we are under the covers. 

I hope that they will want to keep talking to me. Yet, I will pursue my own dreams and hobbies, so they know what a meaningful life looks like, and so they don't feel pressure to come fill my life up. I want them to soar and I want them to walk through our open door whenever they want to and I'll call and check in occasionally because a parent's work is never done, it just shifts. So, there will be days when all six of us aren't at the dinner table, and nights when i am sitting with clients instead of my kids. And all of it will be good and right. I just wish I had the capacity to savor it all a little longer. 

I'll grieve what has passed, what will never be, and who I once was. And I will look for ways to just be here now, thankful for all that is.