Earlier this week, I was walking around a little lake here in town near the football field where my son was practicing. I was admiring the foliage and listening to a podcast and stopping every so often to take photos. At one point, I realized I was smiling. It was a spontaneous, content, all-by-myself smile. It struck me as strange. And sweet.
It happened again making dinner. I was listening to music and chopping vegetables and when I felt the corners of my mouth turn up, I didn’t even really know why. There was just a contentment, a pleasure, a calmness that came over me. And I smiled, all alone in the kitchen.
I recently got a new mug. It’s colorful and textured, and when I sip my coffee in the morning, I love the feel of the grooves under my fingertips. I love the sound of my fingers against the ceramic. Somehow, this mug makes me slow down and appreciate my coffee even more.
The pace of my life is slowing down. Some of it is work related, for sure. Compared to the past two frantic school years, this one seems nearly normal. I’m not reinventing everything. I can pull from my old files and I can experiment with new activities and I can take a few moments to laugh and joke with my students without worrying about falling further behind. My own kids are older now, and I can stay a little late to make copies and plan lessons without panicking about child care.
And sending Bea off to college has certainly made a difference. There’s one less schedule to track and one less mouth to feed. Of course, I still worry, but it’s less immediate. I worry about whether she’s making friends and getting her work done and having fun… not when she’s coming home or if she has laundry to do or if she made it safely to her friend’s house.
The two remaining teens spend most of their time in their rooms or out with friends. The living room will stay clean for days, with the exception of accumulating dog hair. Their messes haven’t disappeared; they’re just contained behind closed doors and cloaked in loud music. Every so often, I yell about the clothes they need to wash, or the stack of dishes on a nightstand. But I don’t spend my evenings cleaning up after them.
This year, I’m determined to help them develop a few skills; cooking being on top of my list at the moment. So they add to my grocery list, and every Tuesday, Lee is in charge of dinner. On Wednesdays, it’s Cal. Thursdays belong to my husband. So my cooking responsibilities have been cut in half. Which is great, because my driving responsibilities and my church responsibilities have multiplied.
I’m keeping busy, for sure. But it just feels different. I drive my son to football practice, but because someone else is cooking dinner, I can stay and walk around the lake. I’m hosting and attending church meetings, but I can sit in my upstairs office and sip my tea while I zoom in.
Mornings used to be frantic. There was rushing and yelling and missing shoes and barking dogs and I was the only one bearing the weight of the responsibility, because Jack would already be at work. Now, Lee takes care of the dogs and gets ready quickly, because he knows he might get a ride and breakfast from Dunkin Donuts, if he’s early enough. Cal gets up as we leave, and he walks to school, so there’s no worry about catching a bus if he’s running a few minutes late.
I’m cherishing those rides to school with Lee. I order breakfast on my Dunkin app, and he runs in to grab his bagel and my coffee. The ride to school is about 15 minutes long, and I’ve learned more about him and his friends and his life in those short rides than in all of our dinner table conversations combined. Bea leaving has been a reminder of how precious those moments are. Soon, he’ll be driving himself, and those rides will be a sweet memory.
I’m trying to be more mindful of those moments when they happen. I’m trying to be more mindful overall, I guess. And now, I have the time to do it. For years, I would try to meditate, or get an exercise schedule going, or just find the time to slow down a little. I thought something must be wrong with me because I felt so frantic all the time.
But there was nothing wrong with me. I was just in the thick of it. In the thick of parenting young children and building a home and building a life and taking care of all the things that no one else could.
I feel like this particular season is a well-earned respite. I have managed to help those small children become young people who are helpful and self-reliant and capable. They can care for their pets and do their own laundry and arrange their own social lives. They can cook a few meals and at least one has demonstrated the ability to acquire employment. For sure, there is a lot of work left to do. After all, someone still has to teach them the difference between the nightstand and the sink.