The Forty Files

There are seasons in life when everything happens at once.

Not one thing at a time. Not neatly, with enough space between each change to catch your breath.

Everything. At. Once.

I return to full-time work on Wednesday.

And somehow, in the middle of getting ready to return to work, I opened my inbox to a PTO email reminding me that I’m also organizing the teacher luncheon. Because of course I am. One minute I’m trying to remember my payroll login, and the next I’m figuring out luncheon logistics. It was almost too perfect an example of this season: everything overlapping, everything needing something from me, and nothing waiting its turn.

Somewhere between trying to remember my payroll login and navigating an app that made me feel like a dinosaur, I found myself getting ready to resume packing lunches, answering the gazillion back-to-school emails, signing forms, coordinating schedules, remembering who needs what and when, and somehow keeping everyone moving in the right direction.

At the exact same time, my youngest is having some really big feelings about all of these changes. And I am trying to hold space for hers while also making room for my own.

My oldest starts a new school—and middle school—next week. She is riding the emotional roller coaster that is tweendom, and I am watching her grow up in real time. There is excitement and uncertainty and independence and vulnerability, sometimes all before breakfast.

And that is motherhood, I suppose.

Sometimes you are packing their lunch while quietly wondering how they got old enough to need you in such different ways.

Sometimes you are standing close enough to catch them while knowing you can’t ride the ride for them.

And sometimes, while all of this is happening, your husband is annoyingly calm, ridiculously steady, and exactly the person you need beside you. He has this way of looking at me like, “You’ve got this,” even when I am fairly certain I do not. He doesn’t need to fix it. He just keeps showing up. And somehow that makes me believe I can handle a little more.

My mom, even from a distance, knows the small stuff matters.

A few days ago, my youngest called her to tell her that her old Halloween pajamas didn’t fit anymore.

And because my mom is a rockstar who understands that sometimes the smallest things are the things that make people feel most loved, a new pair showed up.

Because of course they did.

A pair of Halloween pajamas isn’t going to solve anything. It isn’t going to make this season of change any less scary, make going back to work feel any less overwhelming, or soften the emotional whiplash that seems to come with all of it.

But it says, “I heard you.”

It says, “I know what matters to you.”

It says, “I’m still here.”

And then, because apparently life wasn’t already full enough, a storytelling project that has been a year in the making just got a green light.

A thing I have poured time, energy, hope and probably far too many thoughts into is actually happening.

And I am somewhere between “THIS IS SO AWESOME” and “Oh my God, what have I done?”

But maybe that is the lesson in all of this.

I keep waiting for life to slow down enough for me to feel ready.

For the kids to settle.

For the schedule to make sense.

For work to feel familiar.

For everyone to need a little less from me.

For there to be a perfectly quiet moment when I can take a deep breath and say, “Okay. Now I’m ready for the next thing.”

But maybe that moment isn’t coming.

Maybe life doesn’t hand us one transition at a time.

Maybe sometimes you go back to work while your children are entering new chapters of their own. Maybe you figure out a payroll app while simultaneously figuring out who you are in this next season. Maybe something you’ve been working toward for a year finally gets a yes just as everything else feels completely overwhelming.

Maybe everything really does happen at once.

And maybe I can, too.

I can be excited and scared.

I can be overwhelmed and grateful.

I can miss the life that was and still be ready for the life that is coming.

I can be a mother who is figuring out how to let her girls grow while figuring out how to grow myself.

I can be a beginner again.

I can be a little rusty.

I can ask questions.

I can laugh at myself when I can’t figure out the damn payroll app.

I can do hard things while they’re happening, not just after I’ve had time to prepare for them.

Because maybe being ready doesn’t mean feeling completely prepared.

Maybe being ready just means being willing to step forward anyway.

So, God, if you’re handing out patience right now, I’ll take the industrial-sized package.

And while you’re at it, maybe throw in a little extra courage.

Because apparently we’re doing this.

All of it.

At once.

And honestly?

I think I can.