My children are the dog-eared pages in the story of my life. Nothing creates my memories with more reverence, joy or generosity than my children. But when you’re waiting for the baby to sleep through the night, it feels like it takes years. In retrospect, it all happens in the blink of an eye.

Blink. The day this one used a spoon, or that one said spaghetti.

Blink. They learned to put on their boots, answer the phone and sleep-over at a friend’s. 

Blink. Parent-teacher conferences, team practices, school recitals, social pressures, summer jobs, attitudes and college applications — everything wrapped in hugs and drama.

Finally, my children perfected their look-what-I-have-to-put-up-with attitude and morphed into people. I had 18 intense and, in retrospect, compressed years in which my children grew from babies to people. All the sharp curves and wrong turns, the peaks and valleys, were measured in their limitations and mastery. 

Yesterday, when my children lived at home, I was wise and powerful. Being Mom was both my age and my armor. It was the standard against which all joys were measured. Every day I got to be wrong and at the same time, kiss-and-hug infallible. There was plenty of time. Old was a faraway stop en route to Neverland. 

Blink. Roles reversed. My children started asking where I was going and if I was really going to wear that. They advised me about what to say or not to say when I met their friends. They critiqued my purchases and when they said, “not really you,” I realized I forgot who “really you” was supposed to be. 

Blink: Everything shifts. My children began referring to other places as “home.” 

Whether a homebody or a working mother, it’s not as much fun being a single parent without a single kid at home. The house feels and sounds less familiar. Without semesters and school vacations the days melt together. Laundry is reduced to almost nothing and I don’t have to stock sodas or a dozen varieties of chips and cold cereals. I get to pick the music, hold the remote, and when the phone rings, it’s for me. No drama. This is the best time to make mistakes, to summon just enough grace to be wrong, enough irreverence to be foolish. 

Blink. It’s Wednesday. Blink. It’s October. And another new year. I swing on the gate between Mom and Granny. I’ve begun taking as many naps as our old dog.

The past 25 years was a song ago. My children have children. My landscape has been foreshortened.  

Blink. I struggle to solve the week ahead. I don’t have the interest or the time to indulge in keeping score. I have begun to recognize the likelihood of falling, and the possibility of being well on Monday and dead on Friday.

Blink.

CK Wolfson is a regular contributor to the Gazette.