It’s the first day of school.
The house is quiet. Eerily quiet. They are all in school.
This is probably the first time in 21 years that I have a quiet morning. Really. I am standing in my house, surrounded by twenty one years of childhood debris. The walls are scuffed, the windows are fingerprinted. Laundry spills out of the laundry room like a lava floe, oozing into the living room. Cereal bowls and sandwich fixings line the countertop. It is a mess, and I am feeling weird.
“The school bus comes, and you’re supposed to do the happy dance!” one friend says.
“Want to come over for coffee?” says another.
But I can do neither. I have too much emotion building inside of me, and there is only one thing to do.
Cry.
None of the kids were sad to leave, of course. They were ecstatic, joyful, bouncing off the walls at 6 a.m. Ready for a new adventure. Loaded down with 40 pound backpacks, they marched off as eager as Bilbo Baggins leaving the Shire.
And I am sitting here alone, sobbing to Disney Music Soundtracks.
Not kidding.
“You’ll be in my heart, no matter what… You’ll be here in my heart Always.
From this day on, now and forever more…I’ll be there for you always….Just look over your shoulder, I’ll be there always.”
This isn’t what I had envisioned when I got pregnant, so long ago. I was on the five year plan: Five years at home with a child, then back to real life. I had it all planned out. Parenting was like a small sabbatical, a little recess on the job of life, I thought. A side dish. Ha!
I didn’t know that the agony and the ecstasy of Motherhood would sweep me off my feet and overwhelm me like a tidal wave of love, and leave me sitting here, twenty one years later, crying to Tarzan music like a lunatic.
I’d better pull myself together, because in a few short hours, they’ll be back, Trashing the Camp. If you know your Disney music, you’ll know what I mean!
And they’ll want cookies.
The house is quiet. Eerily quiet. They are all in school.
This is probably the first time in 21 years that I have a quiet morning. Really. I am standing in my house, surrounded by twenty one years of childhood debris. The walls are scuffed, the windows are fingerprinted. Laundry spills out of the laundry room like a lava floe, oozing into the living room. Cereal bowls and sandwich fixings line the countertop. It is a mess, and I am feeling weird.
“The school bus comes, and you’re supposed to do the happy dance!” one friend says.
“Want to come over for coffee?” says another.
But I can do neither. I have too much emotion building inside of me, and there is only one thing to do.
Cry.
None of the kids were sad to leave, of course. They were ecstatic, joyful, bouncing off the walls at 6 a.m. Ready for a new adventure. Loaded down with 40 pound backpacks, they marched off as eager as Bilbo Baggins leaving the Shire.
And I am sitting here alone, sobbing to Disney Music Soundtracks.
Not kidding.
“You’ll be in my heart, no matter what… You’ll be here in my heart Always.
From this day on, now and forever more…I’ll be there for you always….Just look over your shoulder, I’ll be there always.”
This isn’t what I had envisioned when I got pregnant, so long ago. I was on the five year plan: Five years at home with a child, then back to real life. I had it all planned out. Parenting was like a small sabbatical, a little recess on the job of life, I thought. A side dish. Ha!
I didn’t know that the agony and the ecstasy of Motherhood would sweep me off my feet and overwhelm me like a tidal wave of love, and leave me sitting here, twenty one years later, crying to Tarzan music like a lunatic.
I’d better pull myself together, because in a few short hours, they’ll be back, Trashing the Camp. If you know your Disney music, you’ll know what I mean!
And they’ll want cookies.
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