Empty Lockers

mismatched seasons

A decade ago (more? I don’t remember.) I bought a set of red lockers from IKEA. Six lockers. One per homeschooling kid and one for me. (This was after Riley had already finished high school.)

The lockers were convenient and they were cute.

Those lockers have lived in the hall at the Wildwood house and in nearly every room here at The Burrow. Currently, they live in the dining room. It was a convenient location near the dining room table, what was once The Center of Our Homeschooling Days.

And while my students have almost all graduated and the number of kids enrolled at the dining room table is at exactly ONE, the lockers have remained full of their school supplies, memorabilia and what not. It’s on the to-do list, the thorough cleaning out of each locker, but so far they still mostly remain a little cavern of grade school and high school. Notebooks. Colored pencils. Drawings. Markers. Nature journals. Half finished books. Copywork. Book of Centuries. Evidence of an education.

Except this one locker right now.

Last week it was officially Emptied Out. (And not by me.)

Its door hung open. Its insides cavernous. The loneliest part of my kitchen right now. The contents of the locker stacked in nearby piles - give away, throw away, take into the next season of London’s life.

On one hand, more storage space. I am forever in need of that. (But goodness, I’ll have gobs of storage before long. Empty closets and a whole entire house of storage for just one me.)

On the other hand, I am sad.

For the past week, every time I pass London in the hall or we find ourselves in the kitchen at the same time, I hear myself making some small noise. We both laugh a little at me. The noise is like some sort of pitiful deflating. The sound a balloon makes when you let the air escape on its own. A sad and tired balloon. I’m aware I’m making this noise. And I am aware it is not endearing.

And yet.

I can’t seem to stop the sounds. Can’t seem to stop the continual deep breaths I am trying to make myself take. Deep breaths so often and so accidentally dramatic that even Otto’s friend asked if I was okay.

(I am not okay.)

I know it is right and good that she moves into her own apartment. I know that it is right and good (and celebratory! and full of hope!) that she desires a strong and healthy marriage. I know that I want this for her.

I’m doing the right steps. I’m still waking up and saying my gratitude list. Three things. Before my feet hit the floor. A talisman. A routine. A cornerstone.

But we know it’s just a finger in the dam, right?

We parents know. We fifty-somethings - we know. It’s just a pinky in a dam holding back the flood waters and it has to break soon.

In a hundred different ways I have said the same thing …

The past 25 ish years of my life feel like my real life. Those years feel like my living. They feel like the time I had waited to grow up to get to. The part of my life that I will look back on and have loved. My favorite part of me. (Motherhood. Living and traveling and educating and being Mom.)

And I also know, that for London (for all my kids), her past 20 ish years will surely (hopefully) be sweet memories, fond stories, remember whens. But she is starting her next 25 years. Her life. Her waiting to grow up to get to do this. She’s starting what feels like the beginning to her. That’s her Now.

Our favorite parts of life do not exactly align. This is parenthood. And what you cannot understand until you live it. And it’s okay. It really is.

My current list of grateful does include a Greenville address for London when I thought it might be a Colorado one. A husband-to-be whom we genuinely love and, although he has learned lots and lots about us, he seems to genuinely love us back.

I can stack that list up. Those are real and deep and big and there are many more items to add.

I know 23 years was a literal BLINK to me and baby London who said “awww - coot” to everything her little sister did is somehow old enough to become a wife and that’s just a little too much for me to wrap my head around right now.

I know it’s okay to not be okay with how fast all of this feels to my heart. I know it’s okay to be sad and happy at the same time.