#Moments

As I applied maximum pressure and sqeeeeeezed the last of the aquamarine acrylic paint out of the dollar store bottle onto a piece of cardboard, I wondered (for a second) what my husband would think about my decision to let the kids paint the garage. The kids, on the other hand, looked up with anticipation, eagerly awaiting the farting noise that was about to assault the air. As the paint splattered onto their palet…and the garage, and the grass, and their shoes, and their clothes… I began to wonder, “Was this a good idea?”

But it had been a day. And I had had a moment. In fact, I had had many moments. You know, those moments when you feel like you might just lose it? And the idea of painting the garage really did seem like a good one.

I thought it will allow me to have a few moments to just sit and be. Yes — those few beautiful, coveted, therapeutic, mental health moments. I needed them. I wanted them.

But, of course, the painting lasted all of five minutes and took an half hour to clean up…and my husband was not entirely onboard (I asked him after the fact).

A day later, my mom pulls into our driveway. She opens the car door and walks down our driveway carrying a cake… Not just any cake. A double-layer chocolate cake with chocolate frosting with pink frosted flowers. A beautiful cake.

“It’s for Penny,” she says.

She hands it to me — hand-to-plate-to-hand — it is the closest we have been in three months, and I really miss her. And she misses us. I move back once I take hold of the cake.

“Thanks,” I say.

As I watch her walk back to her car, cakeless and snuggle-less, I realize that we are each having different, equally challenging moments. Some are having moments of frustration, of short temperedness, of paint-the-garage-if-you-want moments, moments of missing our work-life identity, while others are having moments of grief, moments of sadness, of emptiness, of loneliness, of sorrow. Moments of boredom. Different moments. But moments nonetheless.

So while some days seem long and exhausting and full of anxiety and stress and I think about how lovely it would be to have some time off from the kids to really focus on teaching, or to process and problem-solve the instability of our current situation, I am reminded that our reality is but one of many. And, that in this reality, I can curl up beside my kids and touch my hand to their chest and feel their hearts beat (a beautiful and rhythmic sound — the sound of love and life and hope). I can read them a story and examine their faces as they explore and process a narrative (a front-row seat to a screening of the process of learning). I can press my lips against the roundness of their cheeks and take in their fullness (they feel like warm plums, but softer…and rounder). A reality where I have the opportunity to embrace the warmth and teachings of two beautiful beings. And I am thankful.