soundtrack of my mind

I live with the relentless steady beat of the sound of time passing.

I am never not aware.

This is not hyperbole.

Is this awareness a gift or a curse?

Yes.

When I think, “Oh my word. I never sleep alone. A kid is always making their way into my bed at some point in the night.”

The next immediate (actually simultaneous) thought is, “Who cares? I will be sleeping alone so soon.”

When my daughter stays in the bathroom so long at night that I cannot brush my teeth before bed and I think, “When will I have the bathroom to myself?” My instant response is – SOON. 

As in, two seconds from now it will be her graduation and every single day we talk about how close that date is and we talk about its impending crash upon us. 

I guess this is why I live with a constant ache that is not pretend because the end of what I love threatens to rob me of enjoying what is beautiful and good right in front of me pretty much every second of every day of the entirety of my life.

No, I am not being dramatic. This is actually what it all feels like to me right now.

(And I know I’ll love what is next, just like I love what is now and just like I have loved what was.)

And if you think I’ve only felt this way recently with the onslaught of extra hormones surging through the teen bodies in this house right now and the fact that the next three years are just one after another in a series of graduating and growing up and growing out, well – that’s not true.

I’ve literally thought this every single day since a baby was handed to me and since adoption papers were signed. 

I don’t know how my heart hasn’t imploded before now because I already barely remember when they were ten and when they were two and how when they were ten and when they were two I was so infatuated with them then too and so extraordinarily tired and also even then I was telling myself to slow down but the only speed I’ve ever traveled in this parenting journey is mock speed.

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