The in-between

Today I took my kids to the dentist, and before we left I was scheduling our 6-month check-us. The first date they had was my birthday. I didn’t say it, but one of my kids said “Hey, that’s your birthday, Mom.” Silently I thought “wow, that means I am 6 months away from turning 40, I’m halfway there.” Not that there is anything wrong with 40 or that I am scared of it. It’s just that I had it in my head that if we were to have another baby, I would want to have it by the time I turned 40. Which is sort of Ironic, because it used to be me saying I wanted to be done having kids by the time I was 30, but then I went through 8 years of infertility and loss, and didn’t have my next child until I was 35. But now, approaching 40 that door seems like it is closing pretty fast, if it’s not closed already. I am looking for the open window, but right now it’s freezing out and all the windows are shut.

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Sitting in Church on Christmas, I was looking around at our church community (of which we still belong, but don’t belong to the school anymore) and it felt so wonderful to be around a community of faves that I recognized, a pastor whose voice was familiar, and the beautifully decorated church (the church near our home looks plain in comparison). As I watched the children’s choir, I felt a bit of nostalgia and sadness...my older kids used to participate in the music and pageantry when they were young, but my younger children will miss out because while we belong, we also are outsiders now not belonging to the school. The school is different now...the nursery and pre-k teachers are no longer there, so it’s not the same, and the school was wrong for us now in many ways. But it made me sad. Perhaps we will find that kind of fitting in closer to home for the younger ones. For now, we are somewhere in the middle of belonging and not.

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On Christmas Eve’s eve, my teen and I were sitting at the kitchen table, making trays of cookies to go in the oven. She was telling me all about meeting with the Navy recruiter and all about the steps she needs to take to be ready to enlist in 9 months. This is not news to me; I have long known that this is her plan, and I am behind her for so many reasons. But sitting at that table with her, I suddenly became very aware of what it’s going to feel like to say goodbye to part of my heart and have it missing from our home, and I had to fight away the tears. Once she enlists, she will do her first semester of her senior year of high school at school, and then she goes off to finish with the Navy. I have to not think to hard on this because otherwise I am going to spend the next 9 months crying. And I don’t want to cry about this and upset her and have her change her plans because of me. I will get over it. But right now, in this in-between...it’s so hard.

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Over our break I had a task I wanted us to tackle. When we moved in, no one wanted the extra bedroom in the basement because no one wanted to be down there alone, much to our surprise. So it became a storage room of sorts, with extra boxes of mostly clothes. When we moved in, I was pregnant, so I also had some bins of clothing in my closet as well. We also didn’t realize how much attic space we had (because it’s not a pull-down, just a removable door with no stair access) but we recently figured out we have lots of space. So we work d together today after the dentist moving boxes from the basement up two floors to the attic. At some point I stopped to take care of the toddlers, so the kids kept going. I am a saver...I don’t get rid of anything I think we could use again, so I have nearly ALL of the Baby clothes and things we have ever used. Even though my last 3 kids were all boys, I still have every piece of girl clothing. I should just get rid of it, but I felt like as long as I have it, there is hope. (Not for a girl, just for a baby). And if I do get rid of it, I would like it to be to someone I know, who would love it and use it and Cheri’s it the way we did. (Grandkids at this point???) I have been dragging my feet about moving it all to the attic, like out of sight, out of mind or something. And the thought of boxing all the bottles and blankets and small baby stuff just really hurts my heart. But today a good chunk of stuff got put away up in the attic. It started sort of by accident with the older kids just grabbing everything they could after I had to stop directing, but then I went into my closet and pulled out the containers of maternity clothes and extra diapers and Baby blankets and nursing pillows and all the breast milk storage containers and sent it all up to the attic. Not all of it went, though. The breast pumps stayed in my closet to protect them, and there’s still some containers I didn’t try to hard to reach. And I know there are still some nursing clothes and probably some maternity pieces left in my dresser. What’s that saying? The only way over is through??? I’m not ready to move on, and it still hurts, and Inhave no idea where I am going, or what’s next. But here I am, putting one foot in front of the other even though half of what I am walking in is dark.