Outside my window it is gray. Outside my window it is dreary. Outside my window it is cold, the wet cold that stays clinging to my feet for hours after coming inside.
Despite my best efforts to get make myself get out of these doors every day, today it did not happen- home late from work, a stop at the grocery store, and all the sudden it's time to make dinner. And even though each day is getting longer, the dark still comes too soon.
I find myself wanting summer.
But then I remember that summer is months away. And that when summer comes, it will mean that my kids are bigger, taller, smarter, wiser than they are right now.
They will do new things and know new things. They will have experienced more and have changed in so many small ways.
I can't want summer. I must want right now.
***
It's easier to remember firsts. First laughs, first steps, first words. First sleep-over. First time down the big slide. It's harder to remember lasts because you don't usually know when they are happening.
One day, I will kiss away the hurt on Gus's elbow, and it will be the last time he comes to be with tears in his eyes, still believing in that particular breed of magic.
But I won't know that it is.
One afternoon will be the last afternoon that Sena steals away to live among her dolls, talking and singing with them as the rest of the house slips into evening. But I won't know that either.
I won't know which night was the last night they woke me up to crawl into my bed, the last time Arlo nurses, the last time he jumps into the bath fully clothed. I won't know that I'm washing their hair for them for the last time, cutting up their dinner, handing them a sippy cup of juice. I may have experienced something beautiful and utterly ordinary for the very last time today, but I don't know it. And chances are, I never will.
So I'll let summer take her time. I won't rush her, and I'll let winter have his due. This winter marks the end of dozens of things that one day I will miss, but which I will never get to say good bye to.
