Here it is. Z goes back tomorrow. Of course, I knew it was coming. Of course, I knew he wouldn’t stay forever. And it has not been as hard as this summer. Not by any stretch. The return, the absence are no longer anticipatory, no longer unknowns that are easily filled with anxiety. No, now I know what the house feels like without his presence. I know the quiet of the late night and even early morning hours without his gaming. I know what it is to not hear his voice more than once a week over the phone. I won’t buy pizza shells, red sauce, or Fanta soda when I grocery shop today. I will get fewer raspberries. We probably won’t have artichokes again until he is home. And I know he is returning to a life he is enjoying. Classes he has chosen, a schedule he has created to fit this new young man who wants to get up early and finish his lectures by midday. He has a confidence that comes from succeeding, from finding his way and knowing the path to follow. And so, the hollowness carved out by his absence is not filled only with missing, but also the joy of knowing that he has a life to which he is eager to return.
This break was a quiet one. We have often traveled during the winter break to ski or visit my family. I had floated some ideas a few months ago—I was eager to go further north and ensure some snow over our break, but no one was particularly enthusiastic. And then L started wrestling and our winter is shaped by practices, matches, and tournaments. I enjoyed the quiet, the lack of obligation, the ability to just be for a time in the midst of a busy schedule. I could read, take long walks, head off to breakfast or lunch with Z and M. Enjoy the movement of life around me. Because my orientation to life has shifted, and time no longer feels plentiful, stretched out before me without measure.
I remember so many hours, days, even weeks with little ones that seemed to stretch on without end. The tedium of a day without adult conversation, answering the same questions over and over, practicing patience during a tantrum, trying to get food into a toddler testing out their control over the environment, bedtime. The worry that whatever phase was happening was not actually a phase, but was hardening into a character trait. Of course, this was most pronounced with Z as he was the first and I didn’t have any experience with things passing and changing and moving on. And as they got older, the tedium lessened, and time was not something I thought as much about because life was so busy and full and there were piano lessons and soccer practices and musical rehearsals and concerts and performances and doctor’s visits and parent-teacher conferences and playdates and birthday parties and So. Many. Things. When would you have time to think??
And then, of course, it all stopped. And we had time in a way that we had never had time before. For all the hard and challenging things about COVID, we did get time with our boys that we most certainly would not have had. We ate together every day. We went for long hikes. We cooked together. We played games over Zoom with my family. We spent so much time outside. Because that was the only way to see anyone safely. And it was the only way to change the view.
Once life started up again, it was a slow return to all the activities. We never returned to the full slate of busyness life had held prior to March 13, 2020. I left my job and my commute went from 90+ minutes to a walk back upstairs. I no longer rush out of work as soon as I can possibly get away. Now, I ensure my days end with time for a walk or the time needed to drive my kids wherever it is they need to go. We seem more selective about where we give our time and while there are some things I miss greatly, there are so many more I don’t.
And yet, it wasn’t until May 2023 that I realized this way of life, with my children as the center, is temporary. Truly. I had not thought beyond Z’s senior year of high school. As with so many things, he has gone first, has just by being, given his brothers the gift of a more experienced mother. I am not resentful of the time I spend in traffic driving M up to his glass studio. I cherish it. I am not annoyed that wrestling requires we can’t travel for three or so months. I know it’s also temporary. I know a time is not far off when I will long for these days, full of endless teenage energy. When I clean up the sink for the third or fourth time in a day, I remind myself that I will miss even this mundane chore. Because it is evidence of them living here, in this house. Even when that presence is icy silence or audible annoyance.
They are here, with me.
And they will not always be.
This is the golden time of my life. And I will savor every moment. I will not let it slip through my hands only to wonder, in great grief, where it went.
Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
~Robert Frost