"How was your first day at the new job?" Everyone is asking, and I don't have an easy response. If I could dissect my day into bits, where the new job is over here and family is over there, I could say easily: The new job is GREAT.And it is great. All on its own, I have nothing to complain about. Love it.
I come home, though, and it's just. Just. My girls are playing in the backyard with their grandma and they are intent on their play and I am just so thrilled to see them. Overcome with joy. It comes crashing down hard, especially because I haven't seem them all day and I swoop them up and kiss their faces. It is easily the best part of my day so far, and it's 5:20 p.m., and it seems a shame that the best part of my day happens then.
The rest of the evening is crammed with dinner prep and eating and I know I am singing the song that millions of mothers working outside of the home sing every single day, but it's a new one for me and it's just a miserable tune, isn't it? Awful.
And because I haven't seen them all day, I want to squeeze in some fun, give them something special, and so we take our nightly after-dinner trek to the river even though it's too late in the evening. While we're there, I feel this shift in me, this expansive, shaky shift in my chest, a sense of peace, of exhalation. The river is burbling and swirling in eddies and currents, the sun is setting over everything and my children are sloshing happily in the mud, trying to catch frogs and grasshoppers and two tiny ribbon snakes we found at the shore. Right here, I think. This is what I want every day to be.
Then we walk back home and Mad walks a little ahead, telling me a story about "treacherous snakes" and she is just a delight, and Violet is walking next to me, her little hand firmly in mind, and she is perfection.
Then we have bedtime, which is not usually the best time of day with Madeleine, and today is no exception. And I'm just not equipped to deal with it because it's too much. Forgive my spoiled rotten declaration, but I WANT THINGS TO BE EASIER.
But no. The girls are asleep and it just didn't end well. It's is 10 and the first time I've had to take a breath all day, and I'm just so torn. And here in my head is that vision I can't shake, the river, my girls in the mud, and the feeling of right, this is right squeezing my chest so tightly I can't breathe.
Transitions can be hard, major life changes brutal. Who knows how I'll feel in a week, a month, a year, when I've had time to adjust? Transitions mean growth, adaptation. And so today I am finding beauty in the final two lines of a poem I wrote last summer:
and how you stretched your arms and scooped
air, and how you grew toward the burbling river.
air, and how you grew toward the burbling river.
I'm with you every step of the way and know EXACTLY how you feel. I mentioned on Saturday that you need to give yourself time and the only way to do that is to take it one day at a time. Also, know that your kids already have a phenomenal start in the world because of what you and Wayland offer each and every day. They will continue to thrive and make their way in the world because of what you've already provided them and I have no doubt will continue to offer them. They won't suffer the way you suffer, all they know is that you and Wayland will continue to love them the way you've always done. Their concept of time is so much different from ours, they will be fine with the changes. It's you that has to get through it the best way you can, whatever that looks like, and for how ever long it takes to do it.
ReplyDeleteHere's my 2 cents: It's good for you to have a separate space (work). Especially if you enjoy your work. And it's great that the kids can stay with Grandma instead of a crowded daycare or at various babysitters' houses (I spent my childhood in those two places). They know and will always know how you love 'em...they've got tons of pics and blog posts and videos as documented evidence!
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