Time Time Time, What Have You Done to Me?

I’m at Stabucks, sitting with a huge hot chocolate in front of me.

It’s raining, and has been since my day started at 6 a.m. this morning when The Poo came trotting into our bedroom. “Mom!” she exclaimed. “Bad dream!”

She burrowed under the covers in between me and her dad, and we lay there like puppies on a rug.

Since then, I met two deadlines, had a gyno appointment, wolfed down a burrito, ran to Goodwill, cleaned the kitchen, did two loads of laundry, fed two kids, packed two lunches, sold some of the kids’ old clothes to a resale shop and, in the process, driven all over Chambana.

My lament is not uncommon—there is not enough time in my day to do what I like to do.

Writing and parenting and keeping house are all joys for me, in so many small ways. But it’s been so long since I sat with a hot drink and peace of mind to type out my stories here.

It’s fashionable these days to bemoan the lack of time to blog. I can’t legitimately complain about not having time to write here. My life is overflowing with rich professional and personal opportunities right now. I spend more time with friends than I ever have. I love my children to distraction, drinking in their goodness and fleeting childhood with great big gulps.

Life is full.

What is missing is the time to reflect on all my riches, of which there are so many. This weekend I saw my life as a mother pass before my eyes as I sorted clothes to sell, donate and give to friends.

Digging in a big bag of outgrown shirts and pants, I came across The Poo’s purple nightie, one that inspired an ode to her so many moons ago:

She wakes.

Calling out to me in her crib, she waits for her day to begin.

Mommy, Mommy. It’s mornin’ time, Mommy!

Together we go downstairs, the child chattering all the while about her dreams.

I was talking to Nemo, Mommy. I was underwater with Nemo, and we were talkin’!

She clambers onto the sofa, bare legs akimbo and the skirt of her nightgown pooling around her waist. She looks up at me and in her eyes is a purity of trust that pierces my heart.

She climbs down again, moving, always moving. She twirls, grabbing the skirt of her gown.

I like my nightie, Mommy! I’m a ballerina!

I like it, too.

I held the piece of pilled purple cotton to my cheek. The cliche holds true: it goes too fast. Once she was a baby, nightgown dragging at her heels. Now she is a girl, strong calves running across the soccer field, showing me her stance with one foot on a neon-green ball.

I can do so much now by myself, Mom, ’cause I’m so big now.

Once she was totally known to me; now she moves in a sphere all her own. She has secrets, a life outside our home populated with friends and teachers and experiences that she and I no longer share.

But at night, when I curl around her in her pretty twin bed, she whispers to my heart.

Mama, she sighs. Mama, will you rub my hair for me, Mama?

And so I do, mourning the moment’s passing even as we are sharing it.

I mourn, too, the time to recall these moments. To breathe in my life as a mother, wife, writer. To sit quietly and contemplate the blue eyes of my son and the chestnut curls of my daughter.

Time. I need more time.

Don’t you?