The Half Story
Autumn is beautiful here.
Evenings in the fall are magic. Leaves make their way to the ground, crunching under your boots - those same boots that have been collecting dust all summer long but you bring them out now, because fall is here. The temperature is cool but not cold, the stars shine a little earlier in the night and the air is crisp. It’s beanies and flannels and some evenings, you’ll find grown-ups drinking red wine while the kids grasp every last inch of daylight running around the fields.
Magic is real and it exists in the fall.
It was one of those nights, I was standing next to a friend and I started telling some story about the day. The topic is unimportant now, but mid-story I found myself running after sweet Leo redirecting him into another activity. We launched into the next story and I found myself stepping away to do something else toddler related. And it happened again and again and again until we said our goodbyes for the evening.
The half story is my whole life right now.
I sat down after the kids were in bed and I was thinking about how often this happens - with friends, with my husband, on the phone with family. It happens all the time. And then I wondered - do these people think that’s the whole story? That I’m a terrible storyteller and that everything that I care to share is wildly anticlimactic and boring?
Probably.
Or maybe, they’ve had toddlers too.
Parenthood is a wild juxtaposition. It’s feeling tired yet energized. It’s feeling overwhelmed with joy and grief.
I thought about the frustration with the half story and at the same time I was thinking about a past weekend mini-vacation we took with family. Elsie, not a toddler anymore, is finding strength in herself and her own joy in her inner voice. She’s confident and brave and everything I’d hoped she’d be, but more too. This three day trip to the coast included her cousins, and because of that, I barely saw her.
We shared a house.
We did the exact same activities.
But she was doing her own thing, using her voice, expressing herself as a person who doesn’t need her hand held and would rather run and play just barely in sight of us, looking back to be sure we’re still right there but no longer needing the full-court-press of toddler parenting.
I missed her. But I had my own time, sort-of, because as she’s budding into her own, there’s still Leo who needs it all right now which I know I’m going to miss someday too.
Elsie was running ahead down the trail to the ocean, sea grass skimming her legs as sand squashed between her toes. I picked Leo up, settled him on my hip. Joey looked at me and laughed.
You know he can walk this trail, right?
Of course I know. He’s growing so fast and so brilliantly.
I know. But I’ll only be able to do this for a little while longer.
Again, it’s all so hopeful and happy and heartbreaking.
I guess that’s my whole story right now.
XO