Open Gates

Summer is creeping up on us at The Box House. I say "creeping up" to be kind. It's actually pretty much body slammed us when our heads were turned looking for that last little spring breeze. The sky is the color of cement, the humidity making my forehead and the backs of my knees prickle with sweat, stuffing everyone's sinuses with cotton and turning our daydreams toward beaches and swimming pools and sprinklers. The kids have one more week of school, and then it's a free for all. 

And more than that, this week marks a milestone I never thought would be coming. This is my last week to spend with just Atleigh. Starting next week, I'll have all three kids for three months, and then no kids all day. Maybe I should be excited. Maybe I should be planning amazing activities for the final leg of this phase of our lives. 

But the truth is, I'm frozen like a deer in the headlights. I cannot even fathom what my life will be like in three months, let alone plan for it. 

Some people have let me know, overtly and covertly, that they think I play favorites with Atleigh. These are people who aren't inside our family circle, who have no idea of the emotional upheaval I went through when I found out I was pregnant with her, and the struggle I waged within myself every single day of that pregnancy. And these are people who don't take into account family dynamics, whose children are still all at home with them everyday. With Ashton, I had barely over two years one on one time with him. With Chloe, none at all. There was always someone after them, diapers, feedings, sleepless nights. Their preschool years were lost in a haze of infant rearing. And when Atleigh reached all those toddler milestones, there was no one behind her to take the focus off of her. When Ashton started school, Chloe and Atleigh were still waiting for me at home, needing juice boxes and crayons and sandwiches. Then, when Chloe went to school, there it was. Just Atleigh and I, every morning, every lunch time. We took naps together. We folded laundry and ran errands and did the Christmas shopping. God saved this baby for last for me, for a reason. Some days I wonder what that reason was. Some days I am consumed by guilt for having so much time with her, even though it's out of my control. 

And to tell the truth, I'm terrified of what this shift is going to mean for me. I sense an identity crisis impending, a shouted question of, "And who the hell am I now??" It's been building in me for 10 years. I went from being someone's daughter and sister, to someone's wife, to someone's mother, in less than a year. And for 10 years, I have juggled all those identities within myself, struggling to tie them all together and make some sense of them. 

The questions I've asked myself while coming to grips with this change are trivial. "Am I going to have to buy more or less bread?" "What will the dogs do all day without anyone to play with?" "How on earth am I going to manage three homework assignments?" "Who will I take pictures of everyday?" But more than anything the question that bounces off my brain is, "What about me, what about me, what about me?" Who will I be when they're not here? My stomach clenches with anxiety just trying to imagine it. Yes, I can go to work, although I'm not qualified for anything other than retail and that's about as torturous as getting my teeth yanked out with tweezers. I have spent so many years building my identity around these three small pieces of me. And now that the last one is about to head out the door, brand new shoes on her feet, oversized backpack clinging to her shoulders, I can only see myself wandering disconsolately around the house, wailing and ringing my hands, like the maternal version of Mrs. Havisham. 

When Jeremy and I went horseback riding, the trail was broken into stages. I could always tell when a certain stage was over, because our guide would hop down off his horse, open a gate for us, and wait for us all to pass through before he closed the gate again, remount his horse, and lead us until the next one. This is what my life has felt like. One stage at a time. Opening and closing gates. This summer, my kids are going to walk through a gate that is going to change our family life forever. This is a whole new world, a whole new horizon that we'll be walking into. The baby days are gone. Gone. I never thought I'd get here. When I cried from exhaustion and changed thousands of diapers and watched hours of Nick Jr.... I never realized how swiftly it would all be over. Never realized that I would stand in front of that gate, hands shaking, taking deep breaths trying to come to grips with this new form of terror. The terror of who they'll be, and who I'll be, in this new life. 

But I'll open the gate. I'll do it. And I won't look back longingly. I won't let regret be a hallmark of our open gates. I'll teach them to always move forward, to always watch the horizon. To be brave in the face of change. To realize their identity lies in themselves and not who they surround themselves with, what they do, what they fear. I'll open the gate, swing it wide, and close it firmly behind us.

{{Weekly Photo Dump: The ever present #boxhousedoesbaseball, a trip to North Carolina with Amber to see Mamma Mia! and some colorful summer shots.}}