Reflections

Reflections, edited from my Facebook posting of February 20, 2020 @ 8:04 pm 

This isn’t a sad post, I promise. More wistful.... Tonight, my husband is at an event in Oakland and, of course, both kids are away at school. I’ve taken care of a few things, made myself dinner, fed the dogs, taken out the garbage, read a bit of my book... I went upstairs - and turned on the lights and looked into each kid’s room. We re-built this 1963 tiny little house when our youngest was a newborn. We thought about moving to a larger home, but we loved this lot and our neighborhood and, at least for me, I didn’t want to leave where Lauren had lived. So we remodeled, from the fall of 2001 to the spring of 2002. We made space for a growing family, including adding a second story. So, as I walked into the kids’ rooms this evening, I experience an echo of myself walking into their rooms in 2002 - when everything was brand new, from the staircase to the carpet to the walls, literally the walls - when they were oh-so young (and we were much younger too). I reflected on all the years in between and it felt to me like this beautiful symphony of our lives playing out in my imagination - crescendos and diminuendos, allegro and adagio - moments of joy, sadness, happiness, frustration, excitement, boredom, wonder, tears, worry, and, always, love. The symphony isn’t over, for sure, and I promised this wouldn’t be sad, so I will assure you I am smiling and appreciating this beautiful music.