Changing Seasons

Pink trees at Taco Mama

I had lunch with my friend Suzanne today. We smile and wave in the school parking lot (😘) but it’s been over a year since we sat down and really talked.

I believe so much in the power of communion, connection, conversation. So many friends of mine are in transitional seasons with new jobs or going back to work. Our kids are getting older. We don’t meet at the library or the park anymore and try to have a conversation while the kids play. Even with the tremendous amount of privilege that most women in my community hold, no one escapes the challenge of finding the elusive work/home/mothering balance.

In my experience, the baby and preschool years require you to be in the present. You are so tired. So so tired. Your entire job is keeping another human alive. Are they eating, sleeping, dressed, breathing, safe? It is all consuming and sometimes so lonely and sometimes—you know it’s true—so boring. And then all of a sudden, they go to school and there’s some margin. Some breathing room. I felt the anticipation of this during the summer before Keilor went to kindergarten. That also happened to be the summer I found out I was pregnant with Cora. I cried in the middle of Zumba class; I was so confused about what my life was going to look like starting over with a baby.

Motherhood is so consuming.

You find yourself and lose yourself at the same exact time.

Right now I am embracing the tension of having some space to dream again and still the very real and present needs of my children. I have time for lunch dates with friends but my afternoons and evenings are booked solid. My kids need me as much as ever, just in different ways. I’m not carrying my kids around in carriers strapped onto me but I’m carrying them in my heart all day long, wondering how they’re doing and how their test went and if their head is still hurting or if they felt extra tired after lunch. What does it look like to reclaim some of the autonomy and independence of my twenties and still hold the reality that I’ll always make my decisions around these three humans who inhabit my thoughts and being?

Let me know if you want to go to lunch and discuss.