I'm not sure where the time has gone.
Didn't we just move here?
I remember hauling boxes up the stairs, an eager ten- and six-year old by my side. I remember setting to work making a home here, finding our place here, settling in. Even now it feels as thought we've only just begun.
But suddenly and without warning my kids are growing up. 11 and 15, adulthood just beyond the horizon.
Eleven. Fifteen.
And time accelerates again.
Life feels fuller now, faster than ever - in the speed at which they grow; the pace at which we live; the natural and ever-growing separateness of our lives.
There are more trips to town, more reasons for spiraling outward into the world than ever before, more of a feeling of hurrying, doing, going.
And I am more grateful now than ever for the slow, quiet moments that we manage savor, while the rest of the world buzzes past.
We mindfully slow ourselves, and gather. We sit by the fire, reading books or making art or playing cards. We mindfully slow, walking together to the creek in twos or threes or fours, depending on who is at home and who is off and away in the world.
We savor every morsel that we can of this delicious life between worlds, as we quietly but steadily move in a singular direction.
Which is to say: we continue to place layer after layer of foundation beneath our family, even as our lives continually shift.
In an instant they'll both be grown; off to pursue their own adventures.
And we'll adapt again, and find a new rhythm and path for our own days.
"The only thing constant is change," my mom always told me. And how very right she is.
I'm not sure where I'm going with this except to acknowledge how quickly and invisibly these pages are turning.
And looking back, I'm grateful for every day that I found the time to connect with my kids when they were young. Not only for the sake of that moment of togetherness, but because that is the foundation upon which we now stand.
And as I scramble once more to stock my toolkit for a new and unknown chapter of parenting, I am thankful for this firm foundation beneath our feet as we stumble through the darkness, toward these final chapters of childhood.
Together.
