I am pretty easy with the world and the way things go.
It takes a lot to get me fired up or to make me worry too much about the future. In general, I live with the idea that things will work out.
Oh, I have my moments. Five (and six and seven) years ago, the desire to be a stay at home mom was lying heavy on my heart. It felt both impossible and selfish. I wasn't so easy with the world. I was unsettled. I didn't know how to reconcile my heart's desire with the world we had built. I mean, how would we pay the bills? And was I really willing to give up dinners out and vacations and all of the other little perks of life for the next several years?
God did his good work. Here I am, four years into this staying home gig. The bills are paid. We don't eat out much and don't do a lot of traveling, but I don't really care.
I've felt at peace, these last four years. Not that everything has been rainbows and sunshine, but that - big picture - I am where I am supposed to be. With peace in my heart about the big picture things, it's not so hard to let the littler things go. Life has been good and I've been moving through it with ease.
And then, last month came and I (basically) freaked out.
Sam started first grade, even though he was in preschool like yesterday. (Seriously, where did the time go?) I came home with the little two and a wall of "times up" fell in front of my face.
I so clearly remember the feeling of time stretching out before me in those first few months of staying home. It felt like a forever decision. And now I see it shrinking daily. In less than a year, I will drop off both boys at school and come home with only the baby. And, okay, I should probably stop calling her a "baby." Another two years and they will all be in school. I'm going to come home to me. Just me.
My freak out is part nostalgia for the present. It's part heartache at the expedience of time. It's an equal measure of "What will I do next?" This is not a peace-giving trinity.
Because it is the thing to do and because it is (really) the only thing to do, my talks with God have grown more fervent in the last several weeks. I mean, He's the one in charge and He actually is the peace-giving Trinity. I am praying for peace and guidance and an ability to evermore live fully where I stand - to appreciate now.
I don't have a tidy little conclusion to add here. I am confident that time will keep marching on and these babes are all going to grow up. (And that is, of course, the goal.) I am grateful for a life that I can feel nostalgic about as I live it. And, I move forward in faith. Time will tell God's plan.