Change

About a year ago, I decided to push toward the new. Mostly because I needed to: it’s arriving whether I like it or not.

The other half came from a gentle nudge from my friend. As she drove me away from the urgent care clinic where I had gotten my left index finger sewn up. A cut created while making lunches for my family.

There’s joy in that scar. The joy of knowing the conversation that swirled in the car ride pointed me toward what is always coming anyway.

I’m reaching for joy because it’s really, really, really hard to let go of the salad days. The salad days of the girls looking to Chris and I for total leadership, fun and comfort. I keep talking to women about this next phase. And they say things that some might find horrid. About how they know women that have had nervous breakdowns as their children grew up and out of their homes.

But it makes total sense to me. One woman I talked to at the bookstore noted how parenting fills part of us. A huge shift: realignment is needed.

I’ve been pushing toward all of the other things that fill me. This is hard, worthy work. Working more at 5 different gigs leaves me failing at about 8:30 each night. Or earlier, when I’m trying to understand science so I can help my daughter with her homework.

I’m on overload. Every night sleep helps empty out my day. Thank goodness. Mostly I sleep enough so that I feel ready every am.

Today I’m thrilled to start spring quarter at a teaching job that I’ve had for 5 years. I can’t wait to start talking with the kids about words. Words! Teaching them has pushed me to offer a class for adults. Also hard: it takes about a year to fill a class. This Wednesday, no one showed. One canceled before class started, one was a no-show, another told me the following day that she had forgotten. If I had emailed the last one, she would have come to class. But I knew when I signed on to teach that sometimes I would be alone. So I danced. And I wrote. And it was good and complicated: a range of feelings.

Change: it’s for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day lately.

Thankfully, Adrienne Rich taught me that “the moment of change is the only poem.”

Happy Friday everyone.

 

2 thoughts on “Change

  1. August at 15 is working SO HARD at differentiating himself from us. It’s … a difficult phase for us all. And then there is Tevye and Grace, at 4 and 2, and we know what is coming, but we also know to hold on to what this moment is. When our youngest finally does “come of age” it is going to be so much harder for us because we will have been in it for so long,

    I wish I could attend your class. Wednesdays are tough right now, well, for a long time to come it might be. Carving out time for myself, to “better” myself is challenging (to say the least) at this point in my life. But I know this is only temporary.

    The same situation that will bring heartache will also ease some. Funny how life is.

    1. If I switch up the night I’ll let you know. I might do that this summer, although maybe I shouldn’t teach in summer Nah, I should. Even if no one shows, it’s a nice hour of creativity. I love your last line here: so true.

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