As a nurse working night shift for nearly a decade and a single mother of three, there were many times that I made my way through a never ending fog of exhaustion & sleepiness.
I worked back to back 12 hour night shifts so my children could go to their dads while I worked, minimizing my time away from them as well as the exorbitant cost of daycare.
This particular work series, my friends asked me to go out for some fun down time. A rarity for me, but knowing my kids had one more night with their father before I was due, I decided that maybe a night of adult fun wouldn’t be so bad.
What I never expected when I walked in the door after a grueling 12 hours in the emergency department, was my two year old greeting me at the door in a soaking diaper. My heart dropped to the floor as nausea took over my stomach. My three year old then toddled out looking as disheveled with dried tear stains on her cheeks.
I fell to my knees in despair grabbing them in a dazed confusion. Literal horror filled my soul as I tried to figure out the details of this nightmare I walked into.
Did I leave them alone thinking in a sleepless stupor I had taken them to their dads!??? “How could I!???My babies!” I screamed as I heaved crying and hugging them as if I’d never let them go.
At that very moment, I opened my eyes and was very confused as to my surroundings. As I looked around my beautiful home I’ve shared with my husband for the last decade, I realized I had fallen asleep on the couch.
I flew off the couch, banging my toe into the wooded furniture leg as I ran to my two youngest’s bedrooms. And there they were. In their side by side rooms, filled with trophies and treasures of a lifetime of happy childhood. Sleeping soundly as if they were babies again. Yet they weren’t two and three. They were twenty two and just turned twenty four.
Relief and disbelief overcame me as I inched my way back to my couch. It was one of the most eery feelings of my life. My dream felt so real. So very vivid as if I just stepped out of a time warp. And I just kept thinking, in a blink of an eye, in one night’s sleep, how can it be 20 years later?
It all came back to me as I realized today was the day I would drive my daughter across the country, on a five day journey to begin flight school. I was excited for her but dreaded the finality of what was about to happen. I would then return home to immediately travel six hours the opposite direction to Knoxville, TN. My husband and I would then help my youngest son move out of his college apartment (Go VOLS) to Alabama to begin his life and career as a brand new computer engineer.
How could 20 years go by just like that? On the couch it literally seemed like I was just there hugging a diaper butt and little pigtails. Now I had just a few days left to be their primary caretaker…to set them up one last time to spread their wings and fly.
I treasure those last moments with them in Act 1 capacity. I came home to two empty bedrooms and a sad heart. I wish that curtain would not close, but every good story must come to fruition and then satisfying closure. And theirs and mine certainly had. Curtain drop. Stage exit.
Onto Act 2 of my crazy life…
It does seem to go by in the blink of an eye. My youngest is graduating high school this year, one is halfway through nursing school and two are out on their own.
But it never ceases to amaze me when I look at them or talk to them I still see my little babies and I suppose I always will.
It is unbelievable. I literally had goose bumps the morning of the dream of the post. I walked around half a day feeling like I had been cheated. I am learning to learn the new normal though of being the best mom I can to adults now. Congratulations to you on your kiddos. It sounds like you have done well!