year one: a reflection

I have been a mother of two for a year.
Hands down one of the most rewarding, love-filled, ethereal, exhausting, brilliant, beautiful and challenging years of my life. I had my first night away from my children on Saturday. I haven't felt that peaceful inside in a really, really long time. I savored silence. Stillness. The quiet places between time, between words, between thoughts. Nothing was jolting. No sudden shifts in mood. The cries in the night. The whines from an over-tired girl. Just old friends, just warm water, just the celebration of this journey that we've been on together for a while now.

I really missed Eliana. I really missed Sol. I was ready to return. But I don't feel totally ready to re-enter. Halfway through the eggs and oatmeal and crusts being cut off and jacked up coffee grinder and No I wanted my polka dotted rain boots, not my ballet shoes! and dog scratching at the back door and general upheaval that is a morning in my home, I wanted to run. I wanted to scream. I wanted to take out my hearing aids, throw off my glasses and bury my head in the pillow. I didn't want to listen or help. Feel or care.

I wanted another night at the hot springs. I wanted my coffee in silence. I had a taste of the that sweet nectar and I wasn't ready to go back cold turkey.

And, honestly, the day hasn't gotten a whole lot better. I've settled into it. The time away feels thoroughly distant. Elie and I had our first real fight in months. The baby screamed through the whole thing. I was so thoroughly pissed, it seemed absolutely irrational.

Didn't you just get your alone time? Your away time? You should be back rested and rejuvenated, all Mary Poppins and Maria Von Trapp rolled into one. Blessed and sweet, thankful and shiny.

Instead I feel all edgy and raw, like there's so much to unpack and so little time. Those hours in deep conversation, warm water, the wooden deck that wrapped around and kept the wind at bay, the perfect setting for a perfect meal, our new favorite bottle of wine, poetry and honesty and depth, friendships uninterrupted, I need more of that. I crave it. Need it like sunshine. Like water.

There is so much to this time in my life. Those women I was with, those friendships, they were wholly founded on our collective understanding of this immense time we're in. We were pregnant together, sat through birth classes, cat cowed and chanted, brought each other meals after the babies came, listened through birth stories, sleep stories, the stories of firsts, of marriages faltering, reviving, of selves breaking apart and coming together. Then we all went and did it again and the layers deepened, the branches grew heavy with new fruit. And for twenty four shining hours we were able to enjoy each other in our rawest form. Ourselves without all that. Even though, of course, it was all there. With, yet without, all the new and intricate and tremendous layers.

I don't have anywhere to go with this. I want to write down how I'm feeling so that I might move thorough it, but also so I can remember how valuable that time was for me. And really quite simple, when all is said and done. The children did great. Jeff was a rock star. I came home. And we began another Monday.