It was December 26th. After a day of happy noise and organized chaos, with the lovely scent of glazed ham, rice pudding, and cinnamon still lingering in the air from the day before, I stopped my dinner preparations for a few minutes to enjoy a rare, quiet moment. The older boys must have started a game on their new X-box, because the silence was noticeably sudden, signaling my impulse to pause and soak it in. I picked Clara up off of the kitchen floor where she had been contentedly discovering the sounds of measuring cups and spoons clinking on various surfaces and walked over to the front room window. It was sunset and long shadow time, the hour of the day that brings such a complexity of emotion with it that it can hardly be described. There is something aching in those red/orange/magenta hues that draws my mind to the deep corners of consciousness and memory; something elusive in the way the tree shadows hover ephemerally over the blank terrain surrounding them that reminds me of the fleeting pace of mortality. And on December 26th, with images of my sweet, joyful children participating in all our many treasured traditions still freshly accessible, standing in that window gazing at a fading pink sky in a silent house was all my heart could handle. Tears sprung and my throat tightened and I held my baby girl closer. Why, oh why did it hurt so badly?
One week later the house was cleared of all signs of Christmas and looked a few hundred square feet larger. Everything was clean and crisp and open and fresh again. I like that feeling, so the pangs of post-Christmas melancholy were beginning to fade away. For Family Home Evening I decided it would be fun to look through pictures from the past year and reminisce about some of the fun things we experienced together. Due to the unearthly amount of pictures we have in Dropbox, this exercise allowed for about 4 months worth of viewing before we had to conclude our fun for the evening. But, of course, a picture perusing activity involving the ever honest and scrutinizing eyes of young children would not be complete without the added bonus of random, confidence cutting comments from at least one child. So, Joseph. It had to be Joseph, my typically sweet one, making his guileless remark even more credible. The following picture popped up:
“Whoa, mom! You’re so old now!”
Uhhh…
Meaning, the current me is so old, as compared to the 9 months ago me.
Awesome.
Oh, the searing look from dad could have set poor Joseph’s eyebrows on fire.
But, I couldn’t blame him for saying it.
“It’s okay, Joseph. It’s true! I do look much older now,” I responded with the friendly mom voice, though inside I was curled up in a corner and hiding my face in a paper bag.
Honestly, that one didn’t actually sting for very long. I was surprisingly okay with the revelation, probably because of its accuracy.
Here I am now…(or I suppose, here I was a couple of weeks ago. I may have aged even more, I don’t know. I’m not currently in the habit of counting my wrinkles.)
I’m not afraid of what lies ahead in terms of the natural aging process. Physical beauty has never been my defining characteristic, so why should I be sensitive to its inevitable decline now? That would be silly. What I am not on such happy terms with lately are the underlying ramifications of my rapid age-advancing appearance: that every new line and every new wrinkle are reminding me of a life passing by with unrelenting haste. So much is happening in the lives of my children and my time with them is harshly limited. I only have two more Christmases with all of my children together. In two years my oldest son will likely be only months away from departing on a mission and Christmas will never be the same again. Ever.
So little time left. So much life happening all around me, much too swiftly. It’s as though I am in the midst of a beautiful snow storm with giant flakes falling abundantly to the ground, but gusts of wind are preventing me from grasping more than just a few frozen crystals at a time. Am I catching enough of it?
Hardly.
The other day while cleaning out the mud/laundry room, I noticed my four-year old’s little preschool backpack hanging open with papers falling out. I’m ashamed to say that my initial thoughts were, “Oh great. Another pile of papers to go through and try to discard without him noticing.” But then when I began looking at them all, I realized how much I had missed of his magical month of Christmas and suddenly felt the heaviness of regret come over me. Usually, when Emery gets home from school he shows me what he worked on and created that day and we take a few minutes together and talk about what he learned. It’s one of my favorite parts of the day.
But then December happened.
The month when the calendar explodes. Rehearsals, recitals, concerts, performances, parties, dinners, neighbor treats, family gatherings, Christmas cards, extra Walmart trips… and on and on. All of it had overtaken the tiny world of my precious preschooler. I hadn’t even taken the time to look at a single one of his little projects with him. Instead, there they all were, tucked away in a heap patiently waiting for this flurry of a mother to stop for just a minute and notice. By the time I got to the jeweled Christmas tree made from construction paper handprints, the tears had come. And they were extra stingy.
Prior to this Christmas season, I had a few ideas of what I could do better in 2017, what I would improve and build upon. I had thought of a few fun goals to set and how satisfying it would feel to meet them. I had dreamt about how I could do more, fit more in, be more.
But now, all I want to do in 2017 is LESS.
That is my goal.
LESS.
I want to exercise less. Ordinarily, if I’m feeling a bit, or even a lot, under the weather, I power through. I just change into my workout clothes and force my body to cooperate with the original plan.
This year, I’m not going to do that. If I feel sick, I’m going to give my body a break and take that extra hour and cuddle read on the couch with my babies.
I want to make less. I am a project addict. I just love to create things. But often this desire requires other things to be momentarily pushed aside. Sometimes, those other things are tiny people (or not so tiny) who need my attention.
Not this year. Oh for sure I will still make some things. But not as much, not nearly as much.
I want to react less. So often I am confronted with a kid problem, like spilled milk on the table dripping through the cracks or a freshly colored picture on the wall, and the usual sweetness in my voice just sort of mutates into an unpleasant, thinly veiled sarcasm masquerading as cool and collected, teetering on nasty sort of tone. I hate this about me.
So this year will be different. This year I will respond more and react less.
I want to say “yes” less. There are so many good things for women to be involved in. So many opportunities to serve others, so many chances to enrich relationships with friends, so many ways we can improve ourselves and increase our talents. For someone like me who is somewhat of a recovering perfectionist, these virtues of life can very quickly become vices.
So this year, I will be much more judicious in the activities I choose to be involved in outside of my home.
I want to say “no” less. I recently discovered the comfortable, euphemistic term used to describe a problem related to any number of psychological issues: “Concern.” Isn’t it great? Include this after any condition and you have a much friendlier version of an ailment. I shall use it with my particular emotional plague…I have cleanliness concerns:). This does not mean that my house is always spotless. What this does mean is that my sanity can only handle so much clutter and chaos before it breaks. For this reason, I do rather constantly clean up my house. And I have high expectations for my children regarding rules for play and after play. Because of these concerns I have a fairly difficult time allowing certain activities to take place in the house, such as pillow fights, balls of any kind being thrown, and…forts. Oh, I have such a hard time with forts. Basically, I can be a real kill-joy.
This year, that will change…a little (I’ve got to remain realistic here). This year, I am going to let down my guard more, relax more, and perhaps join in more.
I am going to simply BE.
Because there will be another sunset and long shadows moment for me next year. If not on December 26th, there will be at some point. There always is.
And someday when I am very old, and my Joseph is no longer 9, but perhaps 59, and I look back at that same picture and others like it, I know I will ache for the days when my children were with me, when I could hold them in my arms, when I could hear their boisterous voices throughout the house and kiss them goodnight before bed. Oh, how I pray that with those pangs I will also feel peace. Peace in having captured all the love and life that I could. Especially at Christmas:).
