Frolicking In Regret!

I was getting ready to leave my kids for a week to attend a workshop/retreat of sorts and my mind was on a million other things that needed to get done.  That being said, I was everywhere but where I most needed to be in those precious few moments I had with my children before our 7 day break.  They wanted my attention. I grudgingly pretended to give it to them while trying to be in 10 different places physically and about a million different places in my “head” as I tried to get things “done”.   Kids are smart and they soon figured out that mommy was no fun to be around tonight and slowly they drifted off to sleep sprawled across my bed in positions that resembled a lopsided Lego creation.

A few hours went by and it is now into the wee hours of the morning. My long to do list has been typed and ownership has been at least partially, transferred to my husband who as we speak is across the Atlantic trying to wrap up loose ends on his business trip, so he can fly home to take over the reins and the reining in of our two adorable minions. In the interim for the twenty four hours that separate my leaving and my husband’s arrival, they and their care will be lent to their grandparents who I am sure will be involved in a bit of tangling and untangling as they sort out politics between a 6 and 8 year old!

In this moment, as I sit on my bed and watch them asleep, having adventures without me in other worlds way beyond ours, I am filled with such gut wrenching emptiness. All my striving to get things done has left me “undone”.  The satisfaction of checking a few things off my list shrivels in the light of the missed minutes I could have spent playing tickle monster or dress up with my kids. I want to wake them up, hug them and kiss them and get them going again only to see the sparkles of excitement and the thrill of the moment in their eyes.  I want to tell them I am sorry for choosing a list over them and that I want another chance to join their games.

Sanity gives me harsh kick of reality. I don’t give in to my whims because I realize that the only satisfied party here would be my wounded ego that wants some stroking and some recognition that I, it, we, are not such a terrible mother! She’s pretty shifty – this ego of mine. She wants the cuddles and kisses to shift attention away from the emptiness and the guilt that she/I feel in this very moment.

So, I turn in again, to face these familiar teachers. I sit and listen to their stories of guilt, their feelings of regret and try very hard to look into the hollow gaping hole in my insides, acutely aware of the missed moments with my little ones. The practical and logical parts of me cannot hold back their disdain over my wallowing. They know that the world is not over because I actually had to be an adult and get things done! “Get Real,” they scream out. I know I will get more minutes and hours with my children when I get back home.   I can make different choices the next time around.

BUT, there are also some wiser parts of me that sit with the knowing that these moments that I let get away will never, ever come back to me. Blind to their pricelessness, I bartered them away. These wiser parts know that nothing is for granted. I actually don’t know anything about what tomorrow or any other day or another moment will bring. My mind is clever at creating some pretty realistic fantasies of what tomorrow might look like. And, tomorrow might look like it, or it might not. Tomorrow might resemble the wake of the tsunami in Japan that stripped away the fantasies of thousands of people’s ideas of their tomorrows. Sitting with that IS UNCOMFORTABLE.  That is just fine…because…I have found discomfort to be one of the wisest of teachers!