Yesterday
All my life I’ve heard people use the expression “it seems like only yesterday” and assumed it was a nostalgic notion, a sweet little hyperbole. But tonight the Rubbermaid bins emerged from the basement, the telltale sign of the changing of seasons for mothers of multiple same gender children.
Sorting and sifting through Laura’s old clothes to replenish little Ellie’s wardrobe for fall, I realized it’s not sweet at all. It’s a jarring epiphany that time is going so fast that one may actually be loosing her mind.
As I checked tags and made piles, I felt as if I had entered some kind of alter reality. I know in my head that it has been two and a half years since I pulled out that soft white sweater with the embroidered rose on the shoulder that Laura wore almost every time it was clean. (I know because I did the math several times to make sure.) But I cannot fathom that it has actually been years since then. Years! It literally feels like it was yesterday. I now know that this overused little expression is less a sweet sentiment, more a confession of lunacy.
So as time flies by today, at a rate I cannot comprehend, I am taking pictures (of the kids too, not just the piles of clothes!), treasuring moments in my heart, and embracing a posture of gratitude, even for piles of laundry that will cloth healthy kids and keep them warm as seasons change and little people grow.