When they’re all grown up

Sometimes the house is too quiet, sometimes the floors are too clean. On a lazy, cool, and rainy Sunday afternoon, which have been quite rare, I become more aware of my inner thoughts than I have been in awhile. I seem to oscillate between thinking and feeling, doing and observing. And I’ve been doing a lot of doing lately. What with the global pandemic and all.

I’ve been hiking and camping and walking and talking and reconnecting and putting semantic and proverbial puzzles together. It’s been good work for my brain. I’ve also been working with my hands – sewing, planting, (hoping to harvest), mowing, trimming, and cooking. Laundering, vacuuming, planning, scheming.

There are times I wish my life weren’t mine, and times I am utterly convinced that this is not my life, that my life is somewhere in the ether or in a parallel universe, being lived by someone who looks like me and talks like me. But isn’t me.

I’m here, wondering what my life story will be at the end. You ask rhetorically, But don’t we all… wonder what our life story will be? Yes, I answer, but it’s easier to let this thought go when you’re hustling and bustling about, chasing children who have dirty feet who are walking on your clean floor. Folding their still-warm small pants and shirts, organizing your collections of their pictures, wondering what they will look like as a adult.

Keep in mind, they could be like me when they’re all grown up. Educated, yes; successful, I guess yes by the world’s standards; happily married, most of the time; adventurous, absolutely. But then there are the periods of self-doubt, of self-loathing, of them harboring a sincere dislike of their own bodies for any number of reasons… too tall, too big-boned, too big-boobed, too klutzy. I just hope you know that your inquisitive and beautiful children could have moments when they’re all grown up when they look into the mirror and wonder what their own children could have looked like. When they glance at their spouse across the room and then look down, teary-eyed, wondering what of his characteristics they could have inherited.

And then, when they’re all grown up, they’ll look at their shiny clean floor and listen to only the whir of the AC or dishwasher and be overcome with emotion and write these exact words.