In Days Gone By:
11.December.2016
Quiet home.
J-bug is still asleep, his faithful companions Katja and Henry tucked up close. When he's fast asleep, I can so easily fall back in time and remember those days when he was so young and so tiny. All curled up and covered from toe to top, with just a sliver of face out to breathe, he looks no different to me now than when he was 5. And in these moments, I feel no different...no older...and certainly no wiser, than I did when he and I were young.
From where I'm sitting, I can see all the small things I've done to "holiday-ify" our postage stamp apartment. And I can see where his Transformers bleed into the decorations...a mini con left in front of the nativity, autobots and decepticons battling it out amidst my wooden christmas trees.
I'll clean them up later, I always do...
And they'll find their way back, they always do...
Henry will show up in my chair right before I go to sit down. A dinobot will suddenly appear in front of my breakfast.
J-bug will clamber his way onto me, seeking sensory stimulation, all 145 pounds of him clawing his way into attention at the very moment I was going to start something else.
He's still asleep. We've missed church once again. I can't bear to wake him, he needs this rest...the demands of the week are exhasuting for him. And tomorrow, we'll be up by 4:30.
In the silence, my mind whirrs...creating and planning and backing up...forever trying to fill his day with joy, forever trying to anticipate every need.
My coffee's gone cold...again. I'll pop it in the microwave and burn the tip of my tongue on that first hot sip, then set it on the windowsill once more, forgotten. Back in the micro...once, twice, eventually I'll get it right.
I worry, as I sit here, over all the things I can't control and all the things I can. I worry about the moments of failure today, when I answer too sharply or don't respond just right...when he needs me to listen and I don't even hear him...when he needs a friend or a father, but only has me. I worry that we should have already gotten a Christmas tree. I worry that he won't understand why Santa didn't bring him the 3d printer he's obsessed with. I worry that someone at his school full of upper middle class and higher will actually get a 3d printer for Christmas.
And I wait. Wait for him to wake up so the day can start. Wait, quietly reading, quietly typing... Wait. Quietly. As though I only turn on when he has need of me.
So he sleeps on.
My home is quiet.
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