I’m experiencing a space in motherhood that I haven’t heard anyone talk about before.
I keep saying that it feels like when we hear empty-nesters talk about when the kids are grown and move out there’s a rediscovery of who you are and what you do without them there.
I’m far from that moment. But yet.
There’s a space in between. When your kids shift from little kid to just kid.
When they still need you, but not for every thing.
They still say “mom, mom, mooooom” a million and a half times a day, but it’s not because they can’t do something themselves. It’s because you’ve always been there.
Being their source for everything, being needed all the time, being that expectation.
Then one day they walk home from the school bus without you (because they’ve requested to do it by themselves now).
They burst in the front door with shoutouts of whatever chaos they ended their day with. Backpacks tossed in the hall, lunches emptied out on the kitchen counter.
They have their own end-of-day routine that you watch unfold from your corner of the couch where you’ve been reading for the past 20 minutes.
Last year your day would’ve ended here too. There wouldn't have been a couch and reading time, just a mad rush to finish things up before the "pick up kids" alarm blasts from your phone.
You’d be the one emptying the backpacks, comforting the meltdowns, taking care of all the things. No time for sitting, reading, you.
But now. Now you’re in the in between.
You still need to make the dinners, but you don’t have to worry about crying, overtired kids while you do it.
The survive-until-their-bedtime days are no longer.
Now in the in between everyone puts their dishes away (or at least closer to the dishwasher than before). Everyone goes to do their own things and you pick up your book again.
You actually read a chapter.. two… three before someone asks you for something. And when they do you can decide if it’s something you actually need to do or if it’s a parenting moment of “do it yourself, kiddo”.
They watch their own shows, but still cuddle with you.
They want to go for a walk around the block with you, hold your hand, and tell you all about their video games in a language you only half understand.
They still want you to put them to bed, but not read stories and sing anymore.
I wish I knew that the last time I sang the bedtime song was the last time. There’s a bittersweetness in not knowing when it happened.
I’m sure there are more in between stages to come. Ones I won’t know about until I’m living it. Ones no one else seems to talk about.
But in this one, at this very moment, I’m grateful to know I'm in it.
I stand in my house, when everyone is home, and wonder ‘what am I supposed to be doing?’.
No, not supposed to.
Not what the internet tells me is self-care and that I ‘should' do xyz to be whole and balanced.
Strip all that away and get to the real questions that sit in my mind as I stand there not knowing what to do.
What is it that I want to be doing?
What feels soul-filling to me now - as the person I am today?
What do I even like doing?
The space in between starts with unsuspecting moments where these questions find me.
Then it happens more often and more often and in longer moments.
That’s when I start looking for the answers.
I think I'll find them in the in between.
xo Amy