tick, tock

 

 

 

Where has January gone?!  Does anybody know?  Because it seems to have sped by me and I missed it.

When I was younger, time seemed to drag.  Seemed like I was always waiting for something: for summer, for a boyfriend, for a phone call, to turn 16, to turn 18, to graduate… Now that I’ve got kids, the time is just flying by and I catch myself turning around and wondering where it’s gone.  My birthday is Friday – I’ll be twenty-six, but it might as well be fifty, because when I look at my babies all I can think about is how fast these years are going to go.  I can’t imagine having waited to have my kids until I was "older".  At thirty, I would have missed 10 whole years with them, and it would have been 10 years wasted.

I try not to look too far into the future these days, because it seems that when I do, the years suddenly stack up and snowball until I can see myself at 70 or 80 and suddenly gone.  I’m not afraid of dying.  I never have been afraid of that.  What I am afraid of is leaving my little ones on this earth without me, and me in the summerland waiting until they come.  I don’t ever, ever want to leave them, not ever, and the thought that one day I’ll have to just kills me. 

How am I ever supposed to exist without them? 

There is a quote: "Making the decision to have a child is momentous.  It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking outside of your body." (Elizabeth Stone)  The first time I read that, it clicked with me and I’ve never forgotten it since.  Because my little ones really are just little pieces of me, walking out in the world. 

*sigh*

I really didn’t mean to get all maudlin and melancholy when I started this entry.  I just got to thinking about my birthday and Chloe’s birthday last week (she’s THREE!!! Can anyone else believe that??!!), and the swiftness of time just smacked me in the face. 

I’ll feel better tomorrow, when Chloe starts a new round of screaming tantrums.