Returning Home, Adjusting and Taking Me Back

I decided to do nothing during June’s nap time. It was a bold move. I left the dishes in the sink and the toys on the floor. I laid on the couch and let the hum of the furnace persuade me into a darkened afternoon daze, the first time I have napped in weeks. Since we’ve been home, I have been trying hard to knock items off our massive to-do list. Two and a half years ago, we moved into our home. It’s time to finish painting walls, sanding floors and replacing light switches, but it is always easier said than done. It was with all these thoughts in my head that I laid on the couch without the TV or my phone on and I slept.

This week our sink broke. When I turned on the water to rinse my coffee pot, water poured from the cupboards, sending day-old coffee grounds and blackened water on top of my slippered feet. I cursed and cleaned the mess, then sat down with June and watched a movie, overwhelmed by the weight of our home. Later, I fixed the sink with a kit I purchased from the grocery store. June crawled under the cupboards with me, tinkering with the extra parts I did not need. Looking at her watching me, I realized that often the only people who can truly stop us are ourselves. Celebrating our first plumbing victory, I grabbed June’s hands and spun her around the kitchen, her body erupting with laughter.

Yesterday evening Sean and June went to the park without me. As they walked back in the house, June immediately started yelling “Mama”. She continued yelling all the way up the stairs and down the hallway until she found me in my bedroom. Pulling her into the bed with me, I inhaled her as if she had been gone for months and not just an hour. She smelled like grass and her cheeks were cool from the evening wind. “Mama,” she said one last time, nestling into my arms. Is there any better sound in the world?

I’ve been making it a priority to read this year. Last year, my passion for reading, like so many other things, slipped through the cracks with my new role as Mom. But, I’m taking back myself this year. Although that, like renovating our home, brings on its own level of troubles. So many of my old hobbies and passions lie lifeless in the spare closet of our home. Because I want my daughter to see me as a well-rounded woman and not a slouch at home, I am striving to put myself more this week. But, like politics and adding salt to your cooking, life is better in moderation. So I find myself sorting through the spare closet, donating parts of who I once was to local classrooms and finding new ways to use my old collections. There is always a new way to feed your creative spirit.

I’m starting this week fresh, rising early to ready myself before the duties on Mama begin and striving to find happiness, even without the Florida sun on my face. Cheers to the mamas and the daddy’s who work hard at finding their own versions of happiness.