Home

It’s amazing how fluidly life fills with minutia and magnitude, family, friends, outings, days home, trips to the store and shared naps because we have both just worn each other out. Each moment bleeds into the next and days flow past. Even as some many of these days are so damn long, they are simultaneously fleeting, in the constant oxymoronic state of life around a toddler.

Being home is altogether a different pace and saturation of life from working. I think I had, in many ways, gotten used to life lived like a story told – just the action shots, none of the “filler” – and if that sounds romanticized it really is not. We used to rush all the time. Rush to get up, rush into the car, with the kid crying and hungry because she didn’t want her breakfast options and now we’re late and can’t come up with new options so sorry but you’ll have to eat when we drop you off, rush to work in traffic, oh the worst traffic, rush to answer all the emails, prepare for the day’s deployment calls and internal meetings, rush to fit 10 hours of work into an 8 hour day because staying late meant never seeing my kid but scaling back was never something I could let myself do. Rush to pick her up, rush back home, rush to get food ready, and maybe have a bath but maybe just change into PJs and have a book or two before bed and then an early bedtime because at that point we were all tired and cranky and fussy. Even as those small moments in the evening were mostly what I was working for, honestly, a lot of them sucked. I don’t blame the job, but the 3-4 hour a day commute was a problem – future jobs will need to be closer to home.

I loved working, I really did, and I will have a career again, but while there are days I miss it, I am so grateful for the ability to take some time to soak in these small moments and just be present with myself and my family. Life now is like unfurling my toes into the sand and having nowhere to be, and no reason to keep dirt off my jeans, just small moments to spend with my small one. I won’t say one is easier, working or staying home, because they each presents such different benefits and challenges, and I firmly believe that anyone who says staying home with a kid is easy should try it out. But being here for all of life, being able to focus on helping her with language and fine motor skills, trying out new ideas for preschool at home, and seeking new adventures at the park, is golden and I am so grateful for it.

(above: playing with Grimms waves, seaweed at the beach, little eclipse crescents (they were so cool!), and the sweetest little tornado I know.)