The endings pile up and I lay awake at night and think about faith. Not faith in a specific God, but faith that all will be well enough. That I will let go of the outcomes for my kids and they will fly well enough, fly away from me. My oldest stretches and leans away from me hard. If I try to peck closer in: snap, stand back.
And it’s not a hard snap. It’s a lie-awake-at-night and think about faith snap. How my faith in institutions wanes but my faith in my kids grows. It has to grow because their time needing me to hold them all up: it’s over.
A song blows in my ear: “This is how the summer ends.”
Summer isn’t ending, but a new season has been approaching for such a very long time. I’ve been saying hello to it again and again.
Last night I thought about faith. How the world is asking me to have some faith that all will be well enough. To recognize that my friends and family and strangers hold me up. And they’ll hold up my kids, too. That I can fall asleep before my eldest is done with her homework. And she’ll call my name an hour later and I’ll fumble awake. What does she need?
She needed help pulling down her blind.
That’s it. That’s all she needed.
I’m starting to be more silent. Don’t ask about the geometry. Or the small plans. Or the big life plan. Lay in your bed late and night and decide you need some faith.
I wake up in the morning and I have more faith. Which gives me more love. And I hand it out for free.
That is a lot of faith to fall asleep before your kids (non-sleepover).
I have no choice: I am tired. And she is 16 and has no desire for me to stay awake to make sure she is OK. Thank goodness because I need to be well-rested at 5:30 am.
Thankfully I don’t need to be well-rested at that hour. I can, fortunately, do my spin class half-asleep.