After the last hugs were given and my kids were tucked into bed, I made my way towards the kitchen. I rinsed the few dishes that had been used since dinner, and I wiped down my counters. I made my final rounds of locking doors and turning off unnecessary lights. I picked up a few toys that could be tripped over in the night and moved abandoned shoes into the appropriate bedrooms.
I grabbed myself a glass of water, and I walked towards my bedroom.
The scene I found when I came into the room wasn’t unusual. The TV was on, and my husband was sound asleep. I carefully slipped the remote out of his hand and turned off the screen.
“Another day gone,” I thought to myself.
Another day where I only got to speak to my husband briefly on the phone or over a meal that was mostly spent feeding other people. Another day when the duties of mommy and daddy had us in the same house, but kept us feeling completely isolated.
On days like these, I miss my husband.
I miss normal uninterrupted conversations. I miss sitting silently and watching TV together. I miss taking quick trips to get ice cream after dinner.
Gosh, there are days when I just miss us.
Sometimes, I look back at younger versions of myself and think of all the things that I wish I could say to me. I wish that I could tell newly engaged me to not stress so much on wedding details. I wish that I could tell newly married me to get advice on budgeting. I wish that I could tell new mommy me to chill out and get off of Google.
But sometimes, I wonder what I will look back and want to tell this version of me ten years from now. What would future me say to this momma pulled in a million directions – caught up in taking care of what is necessary while feeling like I’m missing out on everything that really matters?
Surely she would have all the answers. She would know exactly what I needed to hear. She would know exactly how to balance being a mommy and a wife and all of the other responsibilities that find their way onto my plate.
Or maybe… maybe she wouldn’t. Maybe she wouldn’t have a blueprint or a manual or a one-size-fits-all answer sheet for how to find enough time for everything and everyone.
Because surely if that information existed, then someone would have written a book on it by now. Someone would be making millions on that information, because seriously, that is the question that everyone wants answered.
How do you find enough time?!
But maybe in 10 years, 20 years… 30 years I will finally understand what I seem to forget so easily today. Maybe I would simply tell myself –
“There won’t ever be enough time, and that’s okay. There will be many more nights like the one you had tonight. There will be many more weeks and months and years where the demands are constant and your energy runs out, where you question if you’re letting everyone down, where you wonder how to do it all better.
But you’re going to make it.
You’re going to figure it out one day at a time. Because that sweet husband of yours is patient and kind, and you’re going to work it out together. You’re going to make it together. You’re going to fall deeper in love in these chaotic years as you watch each other care for your children.
And then, one day, you will look around, and it will just be the two of you, and you will have stories to tell, and life experienced together, and a million and one more memories to make.
No. No one has all the answers, and it might not be like it was before kids for a long time ever … but in the simple date nights and hands held in the car, in the favorite dinners made and small thoughtful gestures, you will remind each other of your love.”
How do we find enough time? How do we balance it all?
Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe we just decide to stop trying so hard, and start enjoying each ordinary chaotic day.
Because life is made up of ordinary moments all sewn together, and grace is the thread that makes those moments beautiful.
It doesn’t have to be perfect for it to be special. It doesn’t have to be ideal for it to work out. It doesn’t have to be what it was for it to be great. Maybe we don’t need more time after all…
Maybe we just need more grace.
