Three Empty Rooms
“Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory.”
I’m sure Dr. Seuss was raising children when he made this statement. You live in this perpetual moment of waiting for it to pass. The sleepless nights, the terrible twos, begging them to eat “just one more bite”, homework arguments, pre-teen years, teaching them to drive. You go through these moments just holding your breath and counting to ten (or 100) waiting for the chaos to end.
It doesn’t though, one stage of chaos leads to another and the cycle starts all over again. You actually have no idea what you’re doing, you’re making it up as you go along. You pretend that you have it all figured out but later you stand in the shower sobbing until there is nothing left because you’re just so damn exhausted and overwhelmed. You wonder if you’re screwing everything up, if you’re screwing them up.
You sit rocking a fussy baby in the predawn hours and find you’re no longer spending your time thinking about your own hopes and dreams but instead thinking if you’re raising them to be strong and courageous, forgiving and accepting, empathetic, and resilient. Are you doing enough to encourage them to be successful?
This house is quiet now, the messes are fewer and I have plenty of time for long uninterrupted baths. The nights aren’t as long and the days feel shorter.
Three rooms that once held laughter, yelling, music, and playing now stand empty. The still moments that I’m currently living (and sometimes struggling) through are the same exact moments I prayed for during those sleepless nights. The days I cried over in the shower are the same ones I wish I could go back and do again.
Lately I’ve been waking before the sun with a restless mind. I feel unsettled, a feeling I’m not unfamiliar with but now instead of ignoring it I started thinking. For 26 years I immersed myself into raising three incredibly cool humans and in so doing I lost myself. Once they left I allowed those three empty rooms to become constant reminders of what I didn’t have instead of what I do.
The quiet of this house no longer feels void, instead those three empty rooms and the children that occupied them have inspired me to find myself again. While I was an active participant encouraging the dreams that made them who they are today. I now find those three adults cheering me on and reminding me of the dreams that I somehow forgot about along the way.
