It was back to reality today.
Back to hectic school mornings.
I patted myself on the back again for the fact that I had cleaned out my youngest daughter’s lunchbox on the very first day of Christmas Break, instead of having to approach it two weeks later as if it were the Sphinx Gate.
I’ve come a long way from my early mothering years of having petrified waffles come rolling out of my van door at school drop off.
It only took 20 years.
I thought, “This is progress.”
My daughter, Paige, said she was ready to go back to school, but I always feel a little sad when it starts again, and the girls aren’t here, even if they have spent two weeks living like underground burrow-dwellers, only surfacing to eat, grunt, and say something they heard on Tik Tok.
Two weeks of rain has meant her living in pajamas, and showing about as much drive as the Big Lebowski;
But I drove her to school, and kept looking over at her, still sentimental about her.
A mother’s ability to remain sentimental even through the middle school years is proof that their love is otherworldly.
As I looked at her, I thought about how we only have 5 more months of that drive before she moves on to high school.
The years have flown, filled with hilarity, chaos, and – with four daughters – me being roasted.
Gone in a flash.
Sometimes I hear a voice telling me to take a mental snapshot of them as they are.
This morning I heard that voice.
Blue hoodie, Dutch braids, ear buds.
While she was at school, we took down the Christmas decorations.
My hairstylist told us last week how hers would be down by Christmas night.
She said it with pride.
To me, it sounded awful.
I need at least a week afterwards to regain my composure.
The week between Christmas and New Year’s is when Moms finally get THEIR Christmas.
I loved sitting in the living room alone after everyone was in bed, just me and a book and the glow of the tree lights.
With the hecticness of the season passed, that’s when my heart had time to ponder time’s passage, while the view of dozens of years of homemade elementary school ornaments with gap-toothed pictures inside somehow still kept me feeling insulated from it.
Taking Christmas down always makes me feel a little teary and uncomfortable.
It feels too much like moving from a place that I love into a new home that will be unfamiliar.
I sometimes feel like I exist on a different planet of perception.
Maybe most moms do, though:
Nothing as simple as it seems on the surface.
It’s not just another day back to school,
not another average year,
not just some decorations.
The pictures, memories, and moments matter.
January is a weird time for me, when “What now?” becomes the biggest question.
When I’ve spent Christmas looking back, and now I’m being forced to look forward,
But, oh, how I’ve loved the years in the rear-view…
I guess every new day is life’s intersection.
As the final bin was put away, like it was timed, the rain stopped, and the sun came peeking,
and even that part felt like it was part of the lesson.
I wished Paige a good day as she climbed from the car.
Here we go again.
The sand in the hourglass resumes falling.
She called out, once again, that she loved me.
Every day she has said it.
One day older, one day older…
I wish I could play back each time and watch her grow up again like a flip-book.
Just like the feeling after Christmas is put away, I feel like I’m always being inched forward and made to stand in empty-feeling rooms before I feel truly ready;
But I have learned I can box up what is precious, special, and sparkly and still survive even if the room I stand in afterwards has an echo.
What will this room be now? How will I fill it?
I have seen proof: Whether through friends, or music, or grandchildren –
It all comes back around somehow. What is real is never lost.
I won’t lose what is precious if I face forward.
It will be waiting for me where I store it.
That is how time works, and (as proven by this daughter that is now taller than me)
Time never stops moving, no matter how sentimental you are anyway.
We come back to the start,
But it still waits for no one.
2026 now.
Back to bins and boxes and the question
“Who will you be?”
Mom Outnumbered
Hi! My name is Kerri Green; Wife to Justin, and mother to four highly entertaining daughters -Alena, Chloe, Tessa, and Paige. I am an artist, a writer, a daycare provider, a lover of people, a believer that there is humor and beauty in all things, and the author of Mom Outnumbered; a blog about real family life, and my observations of it. My goal is to make people laugh, to be there for them when they cry, and most importantly, to let them know that they are not at all alone in this up and down world. I live with my family in Sebastopol California, and I am opening the window into our life. So welcome! Come in. Sit down. Just please don’t mind the mysterious wet spots.
