Now believe me, I know what you are thinking -- Be careful what you wish for! -- and I know how sorrowful an empty house can be. I'm just talking about an hour, 60 small minutes, of quiet time in daylight, to do anything I want or nothing at all. Maybe I would run all of the errands that I normally do with as many as 3 children involved and never with less than 1 along for the ride. Oh, to stroll the aisles of Target again without 1 strapped to my chest like dynamite, threatening to explode at any given moment, and 2 more hanging off the cart, begging for every toy, video and candy bar in sight. 2 of my 4 bras just expired from old age so maybe I could go bra shopping, a lousy job made worse by 1 squirming baby (kind of hard to try on bras when said baby is bound to the front of me) and 2 pairs of prying preschooler eyes. Jack is getting to be an age where what he does now, he will recall in the future. I'd prefer that my poor pregnancy-ravaged breasts NOT be one of his earliest memories. So, yeah, maybe I'd flit from store to store like a debit card-carrying gazelle.
OR maybe not. Maybe I'd do nothing of any importance. I could eat a sandwich without anyone requesting that I feed them right then and there. Nobody would beg for a sip of my drink and end up spilling it all over me. Time could be devoted to the novel whose sole job is gathering dust on my night table. Even better, if I wanted to sleep, I could do it without the crackle and hum of the baby monitor next to my ear. I could lay diagonally! Whole bed to myself. Aaaaah, glorious.
I love my family and I love my life. People have been asking if I miss work since the day I "retired" to focus on raising Jack and I just laugh at such a silly question. It's like asking if someone misses wearing braces, a necessary evil but certainly not something you'd want to keep doing for a moment longer than you have to. What could be more fun than spending the majority of my time with the people I love the most in the world and what could be more rewarding than raising kind, intelligent, mannerly children (something sadly lacking in today's world)? I don't miss work which some find impossible to believe but it's true. Jack is smarter than most bosses I've had, Natalie is as witty as many of my former colleagues and nobody in the office ever made me feel as vital as Bonnie does. I'm living the life I always wanted as Tom points out sometimes when I complain. He's right, I am but that doesn't mean that I don't need a vacation day here and there like people with "real" jobs get. Grateful, yes, always grateful for my blessings but wishing for a moment's peace doesn't negate my gratitude or my love for my family. Even robots need to recharge their batteries and Lord knows I'm not an efficient, tireless machine. I'm just a girl, doing the best that she can with what she has been given.
Someday, my children will have little use for me other than as a human ATM machine and keeper of the car keys. They will have lives of their own and my major purpose in life will be finished. There will be hour after hour of quiet time when I'll be wishing that they would run back in the door for a hug or to tell me about their day in minute detail. If only I could grab some of those quiet hours to use now when I need some chill time and bank some of the constant togetherness to feather my empty nest in the years to come.
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