It has happened! Actually it happened on Tuesday. After 10 years of having someone pal around with me on errands and follow me around the house, I am all alone. Gwen & Jack started school on August 20th and Luke started his first full day on September 9. I should have been celebrating, in fact I thought I would be leaping for joy! I had "me" time to look forward to EVERYDAY from 8:15 - 2:30! But, for some reason I wasn't. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't crying, and I wasn't depressed. I guess I was a little melancholy and frankly I didn't know what to do with myself.
It is amazing. For almost 10 years I kept thinking to myself, "Won't it be great when I can just run in and grab toilet paper at Target without having to unbuckle someone?" or "I can't wait until I can clean a room and it will stay clean for more than 5 minutes before someone comes in and messes it up!" Now, here I was with my "wish" coming true, and I didn't know what to do.
Rich has been able to work from home for most of our children's lives, so he has never questioned what it was I did all day long or given me a hard time for not having the dishes done when he got home. In fact, quite the opposite. When we were just getting our feet wet in this parenting adventure, we moved away from our families to Charlotte, where we knew almost no one and certainly no one we felt we could leave our kids with. Our "dates" during those months consisted of smoothies from "Smoothie King" in his office, during nap time :). Ironically on this particular Tuesday, Rich was working from home and I think he could tell something was up, because I was really quiet. Around 11:00, after watching me wander aimlessly from room to room, he said "Can I take you to lunch?". "YES!" What a great guy! With our smoothie dates behind us, he took me out for Chinese food and we proceeded to do the very thing that I had "dreamed" of doing when I had 3 kids under 4 years and I didn't know which way was up. We had a great lunch, fun conversation and before I knew it, it was time to pick Luke up :).
The next day and the days since have not been as uneventful and I am certainly finding many ways to fill all of the this new found time (and loving it :), but it did make me stop and think. The last 10 years have gone by so fast. It is almost impossible for me to wrap my mind around it! My "babies" are hardly that anymore, the LONG infant days are a speck in my rear view mirror and my kids seem to be slipping through my fingers no matter how much I try to hold onto them. Honestly, they are not mine for keeping. Rich and I were chosen by God to meet the earthly needs of these precious kids for a short time and to raise them to honor Him. What a privilege and how blessed I am.
Now I'm off to enjoy some "me" time :)!
